


[MIGRATING -- SEE LATEST CHAPTER] Spellborne

by The Firelight Magus (Crystalliced)



Series: Spellborne [13]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Developing Friendships, Drama, Elemental Magic, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fantasy, Magic, Multi, Ninja
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:28:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 135
Words: 354,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23391733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalliced/pseuds/The%20Firelight%20Magus
Summary: [MIGRATING -- SEE LATEST CHAPTER]
Series: Spellborne [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682548
Comments: 28
Kudos: 26





	1. (1.1.1) Convergence, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, GanjaDreamz liked my work enough to actually start narrating it! If that's something you might find interesting, I strongly implore you to check him out! 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTTgwsmGjck
> 
> (This chapter is currently targeted for edits: to clarify, Yuki is both a Wind and Ice User. People can have more than one affinity through hard work.)

#  **1.1.1 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Convergence, Part 1**

_Fate is just a construct that humans use to find meaning in our lives. To find the reasons for our existence. To have something to blame for our shortcomings, our mistakes, and our circumstances._

I stare into the mirror. Cool blue stares back. My eyes trail lower, wiry muscle hidden underneath simple black clothing. Unlike the bodies of real ninja, though, I have none of the scars to prove the hard work it took to get this far.

_We are what we make of ourselves._

Those were words I’d read once before. Though I’ve long forgotten the author, the words resonated with me. 

_And what I am…is an Ice Aberrant._

Standard Alunian Qi Theory dictates that one’s natural affinity serves as the baseline for their personality. Fire users will tend to be more passionate, but reckless; Water users will lean towards being more intelligent, but harder to motivate; Wind users will often be independent, but less responsible; and Earth users will generally be more resilient, but more stubborn.

So an Ice Aberrant, someone who has an affinity beyond one of the so-called natural four elements…

_I am colder. I am more apathetic. But I’m stronger for it, aren’t I?_

I shake my head. At least I don’t physically stand out much.

Something’s missing from this image. Reaching over to the side, I grab my sheathed short-sword from where it leans against the wall and secure it to my belt.

Now, when I look into the mirror, I don’t see a boy. I see someone ready to train. 

_There. That’s better._

Finally ready, I step outside of the bathroom, and quickly pop the standard stabilizer and growth pills into my mouth. Then, I leave my house and make my way to the South Academy, about fifteen minutes away. 

Five years complete. Two to go.

It’s a massive walled-in building, with about fifty classrooms. Class sizes vary, but there’s only about a thousand students in attendance and about fifty teachers total, with plenty of guest speakers to provide information on a variety of topics. 

My class is fifteen students large. I think about five of them will fail their yearly examination. All in all, there are exactly seventy-five students in sixth year, and that’s because only seventy-five are allowed. Only fifty can make it to seventh year. 

I enter through the gate, nodding to the guards as I pass by. Above us, ninja patrol the wall, scanning both inside and out for any suspicious characters. It makes the place feel a little like a prison at times. 

I make my way to my first class, homeroom. I’m a few minutes early, but, as anticipated of ninja, just about everyone’s there already. I sit in my spot — second seat to the left, second row, and begin pulling out my notebooks and pencils, preparing myself for the class.

“Good morning, Yuki.” 

I glance sideways. “Good morning, Sayaka.” 

My fellow Wind User has long blue hair down to her back, bright aquamarine eyes, and a simple white dress that falls to her knees. Besides this, she’s also decently talented, and rather intelligent, even if rather nosey at times — there are far worse people to talk to, so I make an effort to at least remain on friendly terms with her. 

“I hear we’re power-dueling again today.” Sayaka says. “Are you ready to lose?” 

“We’ll see.” I shrug. 

“I don’t know about that.” Our mutual acquaintance interjects brightly. “You haven’t beat him in all the time we’ve known each other, Sayaka.” 

“Kaede…” The blue-haired girl groans as the homeroom instructor walks in to takes attendance. 

Kaede has shorter blonde hair down to her neck, pink eyes, and a more practical pink blouse and black skort. She, like Sayaka, is another Wind User. 

We three are the only Wind Users in the class. Since we’re usually grouped together as a result for most qi-related exercises and classes, it means that we’ve grown rather acquainted. 

To be completely honest, though, I don’t expect them to graduate. It isn’t that they aren’t hard-working — they just don’t feel _suited_ for this kind of thing. Kaede, in particular, is just too _nice_. She can’t kill easily, I think, not with the way she struggled when we went down to the butcher’s. 

There doesn’t seem to be any important announcements, and soon enough, the instructor for the first real class walks in. 

“Good morning, class.”

“Good morning, Instructor.” 

“Now…where were we? Ah, right, ninja tools. By now, you should have a solid understanding of the basic tools available to a ninja, and if you’ve practiced, plenty practical experience with it — I see many of you are armed appropriately, very good. But there are some tools that see far less practical use, for one reason or another, and today we shall go over one that you encounter often but perhaps do not think much about: seals. Let’s see…Kaede, what are seals?”

“Um…” She hesitates. “They are the written word, empowered with qi?”

“Really? So I could just write your name and feed it some qi and that would be a seal?” 

“N-No, they are…”

“Sayaka?” The instructor cuts her off curtly. The blunette sends her an apologetic look, but answers quickly—

“Seals are a unique empowered language designed to create various effects.”

“Excellent.” The instructor says approvingly. “The writer of the seal _expects_ the seal to function as it is written. Therefore, the qi imbued in the seal is set into an effect as per that expectation. When it is activated by a user who also understands that the seal will have this certain effect, this effect occurs. Of course, you can’t just use any old word. The power of seals, after all, is contained in its history. Now, Yuki, tell me, why are seals rarely used?” 

“Because many people who try to learn how to use seals die.” I answer. “If a mistake is made when _priming_ the seal, or, in other words — finishing the process of writing it and making it ready for use — then feedback is instant and often deadly. An error in the explosive tag, for example, typically results in an explosion — often, right in the hands of the writer. Additionally, seals are extremely limited in the effects they can produce, and are very difficult to master for little gain. The vast majority of ninja would get far more out of putting time into their affinity instead, and be much less likely to die in a training accident.”

“Very good. There are a handful of seal-masters in the village, and each and every one of them are important since we rely on so many different seal products. With that in mind, mass printing is also a way for a User who chooses not to be a ninja to be useful to the village.” The instructor says. “Now, if there are no questions, we can move on…”

…

Soon enough, class is over, leaving me to walk home by myself. Classes typically run from eight to five Monday through Friday, so the sun is low in the sky by the time I begin to walk home.

The comforting orange glow of the qi lamps light the way, the seal-powered inventions powered from the ambient energy of the surrounding Users. They’re especially durable and very rarely ever break down—

_Something’s off about this picture._

I come to a halt, looking around until I see what’s throwing me off — one of the alleyways I pass by on this route home is rather dim. Are the lights out? It’s pretty subtle, but…

_Maybe I should take a look. Just in case._

I glance around, checking for any nearby patrol — none — then leap up onto the rooftop of the nearest building. All of the buildings in this village are designed with that in mind, after all. More importantly, it gives me a vantage point as I sneak closer, instinctively suppressing my qi—

“If you don’t give me the money…I’ll cut your throat open.” 

_Oh._

Well. That explains the broken lamps. 

The voice is deeply masculine and very aggressive — and it sounds serious. This isn’t a situation I should have had to walk into, and a decision I shouldn’t have to make. But life isn’t fair. There’s no meaning to this situation. It’s just…how it is.

_‘Fate’._

There isn’t any reason for me to step in here. If I were to walk away now, pretend I haven’t seen anything — I should do it, I think. After all, I can still help without putting myself at risk. At the very least, I should be able to flag a patrol down. And, in fact, I should do that first, shouldn’t I? It’s the safest option for me, to let someone more qualified and more capable of handling this deal with it. 

But…whoever they’re threatening…they could die, in that time.

What kind of person am I if I just turned my back on that? I’d really be…Ice. If I walk away now, I prove that I should have just died instead, like too many other Ice Aberrants. 

And what have I trained for? An entire lifetime of harsh training and back-breaking work to thrive in this harsh world for what? I’ve had to be smarter than everyone else. Stronger than everyone else. More controlled, more perceptive, more— 

All of that…for what? To live? What does any of that mean, if I never use it?

I clench my fists. There’s no point in the path I’ve chosen for myself if I turn away now. So the only choice I have…

Reinforcing my eyes with qi, I peek down. 

There’s a girl there that looks to be my age. She has shoulder-length black hair that isn’t styled in any particular pattern, grey eyes, delicate features, and a small frame. 

_She’s…pretty._

It’s easy to identify her as a non-User; her _qi aura_ — the energy the body of a User naturally leaks out — is nonexistent. 

“No.” Her voice says quietly, barely carrying over to me. She looks…resigned.

The man speaking to her has his back turned to me so that I can’t see his features. He doesn’t look like anything special, either — but I can tell his body is at least reasonably fit, and he would tower over me. I can recognize a sheathed sword at his belt, the standard issue of _Alunian_ ninja. His aura isn’t anything special, but it’s stronger than mine. But still, for someone that much older…

_So a failure of a ninja picking on someone weaker, then?_

He grabs the collar of the girl’s shirt, lifting her off of her feet. She doesn’t resist, closing her eyes. If I were to try and get the attention of someone…the girl’s life would probably be forfeit.

_Guess it was good I didn’t leave, after all. I have one chance to do this right._

Quietly, I draw the short-sword and—

I don’t know what alerts him — perhaps it’s just his instincts, because I certainly haven’t made a sound — but he turns around, looks at me, and understands instantly. 

_Damn._

“And what exactly do you think you’re doing?” He asks, his voice slightly manic.

Thinking quickly, I come up with a lie. “I’ve alerted the patrol to this location. They’re on their way, and if you don’t let her go, you know the penalty that awaits you for something like this.”

My threat doesn’t seem to scare him at all, though. “And they believed you, a little wannabe ninja? I’ll call that bluff — I’ll kill you and take this girl with me, too.” He tosses the girl he’s been holding up into a nearby wall. She hits hard, whimpering before collapsing onto the ground. 

My heart pounds as he draws the sword on his back. It’s a little rusty and clearly hasn’t seen use in a while, but it’s definitely still sharp enough to kill me in a single strike. This isn’t good at all. Even if he’s a failure of a ninja, the lowest dregs of this society, I’m just a fifteen-year old kid. This wouldn’t be a problem if he was a civilian, but…

This is no good. I haven’t finished maturing yet, despite the medications. Not only is he an adult, he’s also a real User, failure or not. I’m _not_.

He takes a step back, moving closer to the girl, and I give him exactly what he wants — I jump down into the dimly-lit alleyway, cutting off all hope of rescue. 

Grinning viciously, he charges at me, and I hastily sidestep his lunge. My blade slashes out, aiming to cut him as he passes, but he manages to whirl and block the blade before it connects. His follow-up strike slips past my guard and cuts into my arm, leaving behind a shallow gash. 

That single exchange told me everything I need to know about the eventual outcome of this fight. I did everything perfectly; I pulled him into an attack, waited for him to overextend, and took advantage of the opening. But he reacted so fast to my attack that even with all that, I wasn’t able to hurt him. 

_The first time I really need to try…and I can’t even…_

“What’s the matter?” He taunts. “Where’d all that earlier bravado go?” 

I can’t fight. I can’t run. So I don’t have a choice, then…

_I need to act. Now._

I sheath my blade.

“It’s a little late for that.” He says menacingly, walking forward.

Abruptly, my qi shifts to Ice, my _real_ primary affinity. He must detect something, hesitating for a critical moment. With a high-pitched whine, a sword of Ice materializes in my outstretched hands. 

My attacker’s eyes widen. 

“Wait a second…that’s illegal, isn’t it? An _aberration_ of Ice?” 

I give him a cold look. “As is trying to kill a child. The penalty for both is execution. But don’t worry. I’ll let you go first _._ ”

This time, I’m the one who goes on the offensive, running towards him. I can’t let him escape now — the penalty for having an illegal aberration like this is death, so I have to kill the witness. 

He strikes back, attempting to stop me. But my blade, honed with potent Ice energy, shears through the rusty metal of his sword and touches his throat, threatening to spill blood. The world freezes as the split metal falls to the ground, landing with a metallic ring upon the stone road.

“You…” He stares into my eyes, fear in his gaze. 

“What’s the matter?” I whisper, steeling myself to make the cut that will end his life. “Where’d all that earlier bravado go?” 

One soft, whispered word from behind me.

“Dodge.”

I trust it, moving instinctively to the side as a dagger _flies_ through the air and sinks deep into his forehead, shattering bone. Blood splatters messily as the man — no, the corpse — collapses lifelessly to the ground, back-first.

I whirl around to find the girl from earlier, her body trembling slightly. Her eyes don’t leave the corpse, not until I shift away.

“Was — did you just — was that _you?_ How?” I ask. That wasn’t the force of a thrown knife — that was way faster than anything she should have been able to hurl, even if she could reinforce herself with qi like I can! 

_And she just killed someone! Not many civilians could have done that so easily, but…_

“Y-Yes. I…I use seals.” She says, the determination in her voice from earlier suddenly gone. Glancing back at the corpse, I’m able to spot a dimly glowing marking on the bottom of the handle of the knife, although it’s been smeared with various fluids. 

The ink she used…must have been her own blood. 

_But how did she activate it? I can’t sense qi from her at all. She’s definitely a non-User. Even the simplest of seals require a tiny spark._

“Are…A-Are you going to kill me?” She asks nervously. 

“What? No. Why would you—“ 

_Oh. She’s seen my Ice aberration. If she were to tell anyone…then I’d get killed._

_But it would be so stupid to save her life just to kill her after._

“Well, no, I wasn’t going to.” I say, letting my qi dissipate. My Ice blade fades away into the air.

“…Really?” She asks.

“Yep.” 

“Oh.” She relaxes, just a little bit. “T-Thank you. For…not killing me, and…for saving my life.” 

I nod. “Of course. I’d appreciate it if you could just…not tell anyone about what you’ve seen?” 

She bobs her head eagerly. “I won’t!” Then grey eyes trail down to my arm, widening minutely. “But…weren’t you…?”

I glance down, looking at the place I had been cut. There’s nothing left but smeared blood, now.

“Don’t worry, I’m used to it. Anyways, will you be able to get home safely?” I ask. 

A look of… _something…_ flashes across her face. “I’ll…yep! I’ll be fine.” 

“If you say so. Farewell…ah, I don’t know your name, do I?” I realize. 

“Ah! My name is Setsuna.” I patiently wait for a surname, but realize that one isn’t forthcoming. There’s a lot of different potential reasons for that, though, so I won’t pry.

“Setsuna, huh? My name is Yuki.” I reply. 

“Yuki?” She sounds out, before smiling shyly. “Nice to meet you, Yuki.” 

_That’s the first time she’s smiled._

“It’s nice to meet you too, Setsuna.” I say. “Farewell!” 

I turn away, gingerly stepping over the corpse on the ground and exiting the dark alley.

“Farewell!” Her voice calls out. I glance back, watching her reach down to rip the dagger out from the corpse without hesitation.

_You shouldn’t have told her your name._

_It doesn’t matter. I’m a User, and she isn’t. Our lives were separate from the very beginning. Chance encounter or not, I’ll never see her again. The life of someone blessed with the_ gift _of qi and the life of one ignored…are undeniably separate._

It would seem, however, that the fickle construct called ‘Fate’ would disagree with me, and sooner than I’d anticipated.


	2. (1.1.2) Convergence, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTH5JQjDDiM
> 
> I was lucky enough to get another narration by the wonderful GanjaDreamz! I'm so honored! You should check it out! Now!

#  **1.1.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Convergence, Part 2**

I stare at the pills in my hand.

The first, a qi stabilizer. Something that keeps our power in check so that us ninja children can focus on pure control. All students in the Academy take it until they graduate.

The second, a growth accelerator. A miracle invention by one of the top researchers in the village that is taken daily from the age of seven. It accelerates the growth of the human body, so that we age eleven years in the course of only seven. By the time we exit the Academy, we’re sixteen.

I swallow them. I never feel any different, but the change in my body has been evident. Faster, stronger…I’m not as weak as I used to be even just six months ago. 

Do I have everything else? Equipment? Knives, sword, pouch filled with random useful things, basic clothing, all good. Backpack with generic school supplies? Right here. Seems like I’m good to go, then. Locking up behind me, I head out to another day of classes, using the travel time to think. 

_I watched a man die and felt nothing_.

 _This_ is why the Ice aberration is such an issue. I’m not supposed to view death like this. While death is an inevitable part of a ninja’s life, shouldn’t I feel something? 

_I participated in his death. The actions I took directly led to his death._

But no matter how much I try, there’s just nothing there. I can’t make myself feel remorse or guilt about it. His death just feels like a…fact.

_I saved someone. That’s important, isn’t it?_

And that, at least, does make me feel somewhat better. 

“Yuki!”

I glance behind me. “Sayaka.”

“Did you hear? Chikako got cut out of class!” 

Huh. Chikako was the girl that sat directly to my left. We never talked, but I was at least familiar with her. She simply wasn’t noteworthy, being both rather shallow and rather weak. Sayaka, in comparison, was and is far more interesting. 

I blink. “Fascinating. How did you find out about this?”

“Kaede heard from Mayuri who heard from her.” She says brightly. “Apparently, it happened late last night. They got a memo from the Department of Education that she was being replaced, since we were getting a new student and she was the lowest in the class rankings.”

“Hm…” I hum thoughtfully. “They’re not lowering the student cap, are they? Well, we’ll already lose twenty-five by next year, so I guess twenty-four wouldn’t be much of a difference.” 

Only the top fifty students make it to seventh year. All those who fail to make the cut can either choose to repeat the year, hoping to make the cut next year, or drop out entirely. Usually, people tend to drop out. The reality is that if you can’t make it through the Academy…you definitely won’t make it in real life. 

“Nope.” She grins. “Guess again!” 

“A transfer student.” 

She grins. “Yep! I wonder what they’ll be like.” 

I stop.

“Yuki?”

_Don’t tell me—_

_…_

‘Fate.’ 

“Ah…pleased to meet you, everyone.” She says, bowing. “My name is Setsuna Tsuri.” 

Now that I’m paying more attention to it, she has a somewhat emotionless tone of voice, doesn’t she? It doesn’t stand out too much in this room of aspiring ninja, but it’s something worth noting. 

As she talks, her eyes scan the room. The second she sees me — it’s slight, but there’s a tiny change in her demeanor. Ah, it’s her eyes. For a moment, they went from mostly indifferent to…anticipating? At least, that’s the impression I’m getting from her. She’s directed to take a seat, and immediately makes a beeline for the empty seat to my left. 

_Hm. This could be trouble._

It could go either way, to be honest. She’s in on the secret now, and my life is in her hands. So what will she do with it? If she tells anyone about my Ice aberration, all it would take is one medical scan to be found out. Then…I’d be executed. 

“It sure is a coincidence you’ve found yourself here.” I murmur to her from the corner of my mouth. Without changing her expression, she replies, almost too quietly to hear— 

“Rooftop at lunch.” 

I tilt my head to show my assent, then allow myself to focus on what our teacher is saying.

…

The first two classes go by without anything interesting happening, save for one minor incident. Setsuna appears to be a very meticulous student, taking notes without pause. 

At least, that’s the act she portrays. When I actually read through what she’s doing…it’s a bunch of nonsense. My eyes narrow as I look closer, channeling a tiny amount of qi to my eyes — enough to avoid detection by the teacher, or anyone else paying attention. 

_Those aren’t scribbles. They’re a bunch of seals, I think. Unprimed, but…_

My mind flashes back to yesterday.

_“Y-Yes. I…I use seals.”_

She glances at me sharply. Having been noticed, I meet her gaze head-on instead of trying to hide my curiosity. But that only raises another question—

_How did she catch me? I used barely any qi at all. If the teacher didn’t notice, there’s definitely no way she should have._

Apparently dismissing me after a moment, she continues writing, not bothering to hide anything. It doesn’t matter much, since I can’t read it. 

“Yuki, care to answer the question?” Our teacher calls out. 

“The four major qi types are Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. Types that do not fall into this category are considered _aberrations._ Aberrations are usually stronger or more versatile than the primary elements, but also somewhat rare. They are all granted at birth.” I recite tonelessly. 

“Correct. Now, could our new student answer the question: Of the many different varieties of aberrations _,_ which one is the most common one?”

“Lightning.” Setsuna answers shortly. “Two point six percent of Users.” 

“Excellent! Now, as you should already know, aberrations are broadly separated into three types: materialistic, manifested, and internal…” 

_That was impressive multitasking on her end. She didn’t stop writing even as she processed and answered the question. And it’s not normal writing, either — those are seals, which are…to put it lightly, a lot more complex than normal letters. The scripts are intensely more complicated when compared to the common language, which is designed for simplicity, ease of learning, and speed._

But seals are more than that. They’re perhaps one of the purest examples of ‘intent given form’, the pinnacle of all the ninja arts. Limited, but supremely powerful in the fields they are usable in—

_Sealing. Unsealing._

And Setsuna seems to specialize in them. I had no clue that they could be written as what seems to be an outright language.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about the field of sealwork, and therefore it remains almost entirely a _theoretical_ field. The things that we as a society have mastered; such as explosive seals, which releases or _unseals_ qi sealed into them in an explosive manner; and storage seals, which stores or _seals_ things put into them in an unknown second dimension; we mass-produce them for widespread use.

The majority of ninja will never look into the field beyond this. Seals are _extremely hard work_ for rather little gain. There’s much more progress to be made via working on one’s own affinity. Someone who spends five years working on seals is unlikely to make significant progress, if they survive; someone working five years on their affinity is likely to come close to mastery, if they work very hard.

So it’s interesting to see someone, especially someone so _young,_ have such a vested interest in seals. It’s such a bizarre, hard to understand, and niche field — just like rituals. Except, unlike rituals, seals have much more use in everyday life. 

_Hm. Perhaps what I saw then was a secret, too. A throwing knife blasted through a man’s face with the power of an unrecognizable seal._

That definitely wasn’t one of the standard seals, storage or explosive. And it’s definitely not something a kid like her, a _non-User_ should know. I won’t say anything, then — at least, not until I understand what’s going on. There’s too many questions and not enough answers.

_Wait, but if she’s a non-User, how is she here? Who are you really? What are you hiding? Why are you helping me? Are you really okay with having killed a man?_

I frown. Perhaps it’s not accurate to call her a non-User, if she’s here and can activate seals…

_But that just raises another question. If she is indeed a User…what is her affinity? Why is her qi aura so weak? Why bother with seals at all?_

It’s a mystery. But, I am able to see through one thing, because of what I’ve witnessed. This little mask of hers— 

“Yuki, if you could answer the question?” 

“Although affinities tend to guide a person’s personality, there are plenty of examples that prove that individuals can grow outside of them. Nonetheless, they are rather definitively proven to have _some_ level of effect on a person’s base personality — and, oftentimes, the stronger the affinity, the more they match this template. It’s possible to have multiple affinities as well through hard work and development, but your base affinity will always be the easiest for you to use.” I say.

“A very detailed answer.” The teacher replies approvingly. “Setsuna, can you name some of the aberrations that can cause issues as a result of this influence?” 

She very carefully doesn’t look at me. “Ice users tend to be cold and borderline sociopathic, and it is a banned element in the village. Lightning users tend to be more chaotic, impulsive, and prideful.”

“Very good! Since you mentioned Lightning, let’s talk about some of the different ways it differs from the four primary affinities…” 

Setsuna continues writing in her book all the way until the end of class. 

…

The third class is Practical Qi — in other words, where we put into practice the lessons we’ve learnt on qi theory. We move out to one of the fields surrounding the Academy — and that’s when things start slipping downhill. 

“So you lot revisited affinities and aberrations today, correct?” 

“Yes, sir!” 

“Good, good…ah, you.” He points at Setsuna. “I understand you have some special conditions, correct?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

_Special conditions? This must be related to what I was thinking of earlier._

“Very well. You can come over here — I have a different assignment for you.” 

“Understood, sir.” She follows his instructions obediently, drawing curious stares from our classmates, but nothing more.

“Alright! It’s been a while since we’ve done this, so let’s have the rest of you group up and do some _power dueling_!” Our teacher shouts.

Ah, power duels. Power comes down to, effectively — 

_How much qi can you utilize at once?_

There’s a lot of factors that influence power. Connection to your affinity, overall skill, higher qi control, age, experience…the list goes on and on. It could be considered a mixture of born talent and skill, but even talented individuals can be overwhelmed by someone who works really hard and _efficiently._

And, of course, power doesn’t decide every battle, or even most of them. However, the one with more power usually sets the pace and tone of every fight, and it is absolutely important on the context of, say, the battlefield. As a result, it’s vital to know your overall power level, and how to quickly sense others’.

“That new girl is interesting, isn’t she?” Sayaka whispers to Kaede as the two take their stances. 

“Yeah! I wonder what affinity she is?” 

“Maybe she’s an aberrant?”

“Who knows? She doesn’t really seem the type, though…” The pair stare at Setsuna, who is busy talking to the instructor.

“Or…” Sayaka says, giggling. “Maybe she’s signing up for a different kind of instruction altogether?” 

“You don’t mean—“ Kaede whispers, scandalized.

I tune them out. Although we’ve taken a set of medications early at birth that accelerates our physical (and in turn) mental development by four years over the course of our schooling, I haven’t hit the age where I could care about anything like that. Right now, I have similar mental development to a thirteen year old. By the time I graduate, I’ll effectively be a sixteen year old. 

Then again…regardless of my age, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to care about baseless and what appears to be slightly malicious gossiping of a classmate and potential comrade. 

“This time I’ll beat you, Sayaka!” Kaede grins. The former flips her hair—

“You can try.”

For Wind power comparison, especially at this level, what happens is that the two individuals will stand a few meters apart from each other. Then they will try to blow the other person off their feet with nothing more than qi. 

_Obviously,_ this isn’t the same for different elements, _or_ higher levels of power. Fire users doing that to each other might result in a fatality, for example. And Wind users at certain power level…the loser would get torn to pieces.

_Although it would be one hell of a spectacular show._

The two take their places three meters away from each other, leaving me to officiate. 

“Ready?” I ask them. They nod determinedly. 

“Begin.” 

Sayaka pushes out a burst of Wind. Kaede is taken off guard, but manages to weather the storm with a counter-push and even shoves back with her own efforts. 

Despite that, though, Sayaka is able to take control. With a roar of exertion, a wall of Wind crashes into Kaede, knocking her down.

“And that’s over.” I say. The results were predictable, but Kaede is improving at a marked place — enough to begin actually challenging her counterpart. “That was closer than usual. I think you stand a serious chance at beating her if you keep up your hard work.” I compliment Kaede. 

_It’s important to keep her morale up._

She pumps her fists. “Yep! I’m going to defeat her one day!” 

I take Kaede’s place, but move back until there’s five meters between us. I’m a little bit stronger than the blonde, so the extra safety margin is necessary.

I’ve always _let_ our battles come to a comfortable draw. There’s been no reason to show off. It keeps the status quo in place — Sayaka at the top of the class, with me resting in a comfortable second place. People leave me alone for the most part, which is exactly what I want. 

_But for some reason, I feel like I ought to show off, just a little bit._

Losing the status quo would be really annoying — attention would be drawn to me, certainly, since Sayaka is considered the strongest student in the grade. But that would blow over fast, and be little more than an inconvenience. 

As for the gain, well, I think it’ll be quite interesting to see how Setsuna reacts. And it might present some useful opportunities if I suddenly overthrow Sayaka. 

“Ready to lose this time? We might’ve drawn forty times already, but this one’ll be different!” Sayaka vows, staring me down. 

“Mm.” I reply noncommittally. 

“Begin!” Kaede shouts. 

There’s no warm-up this time. Sayaka, already racing to go, fires a jet of wind at me that would easily knock me off my feet…

_If I stood still and let it._

Having already been ready, my own qi is released, pressing against it with equal force and nullifying it. A frustrated expression on her face appears, and she begins forcing more and more qi out. 

_That’s inefficient. Throwing more qi than you’re ready to efficiently handle…well, you do get a slightly stronger output, but you waste a ton more qi._

I marginally increase my output to compensate, keeping a tight lid on my control.

_This is about her limit. I think it’s time to make a point._

“Hey, Sayaka.” I call out over the roaring wind.

“ _What!?_ ” She shouts back, apparently irritated. 

“It’s rude to make fun of people behind their backs, you know.” 

“Are you talking about — so what? It’s not like I’m spreading rumors or anything!” 

“I don’t think you understand the problem here. I think you’d hate it if people did the same to you, wouldn’t you?”

“Is that supposed to be a threat?!” 

“Ah, no. It’s about to be your _reality_.”

Kaede finally notices. “You’re — you’re using one _finger_ to match her output?!” 

I send a smirk Sayaka’s way. Even though I’m holding my entire hand up, the qi output I’m using? Just my middle finger.

_That doesn’t actually mean my output is less than a fifth of what I can produce, but it sure does look that way to inexperienced Wind users. Actually, a thinner output is better. The heightened pressure tears through the core of the larger spell, dispelling the rest in the process._

_But really…I’m just more powerful than she is. I’ve worked harder and I’m just more talented. Though I’m being efficient now, it wouldn’t be hard to directly overwhelm her._

People start to take notice from all the shouting going on, and soon enough, they begin to notice as well. Murmurs start taking form, and I’m able to catch the gist of it— 

_Am I the one that’s strong, or is Sayaka the one that’s weak?_

_I could end it here. I could_ lose. _Let it be a draw, like it always is._

_But…I won’t._

“You know, the problem with making fun of people, Sayaka…” I shout, the roaring of the wind now loud enough to make normal conversation impossible. “It’s that sometimes they have friends who take offense, and _they might decide to_ do _something about it!_ ” 

As I end my sentence, I abruptly use the rest of my hand to force out Wind, as well. My output abruptly doubles, sending a blast of air towards Sayaka that she has no way to block or avoid. I’m not going to seriously injure her over a schoolyard spat, but I do take satisfaction in the way that she’s knocked to the ground, shock clear on her face.

Absolute silence. The class doesn’t know how to react. Sayaka was considered the strongest student in the class, and I second. For me to demonstrate such a massive difference in power…

_That sense of satisfaction was quite exhilarating. Although I feel a bit bad now. Maybe that was a little overboard?_

So I walk over to her as she lays face-up on the ground, panting, and offer my hand.

Sayaka stares at me, mixed emotion swirling in her eyes. On the one hand, I can tell she wants to slap my hand away, but…she knows she’ll lose even more face if she does that. It’s better to be a gracious loser than a sore one. 

And she’s smart. That’s why she hasn’t let her emotions dictate what she’ll do, and is thinking about it. 

And, what must be most annoying to her — she knows I know she knows. And I know she knows I know. She’s so very aware that I’m forcing her into this situation _and making myself look good doing it._

So it’s only begrudgingly she takes my hand and allows me to pull her to her feet. 

“Good job.” She says, dropping my hand. It’s a little bitter, but I can also detect a faint hint of respect in her tone, I think.

I nod. “You too.” I reply, honestly. 

Someone starts slowly clapping. I turn over my shoulder to look — it’s our instructor. Following his cue, everyone else follows suit, and soon we’re both surrounded by applause.

I glance at Setsuna — she’s clapping too, but there’s something off about her expression. I’m not able to figure out what, though, and when she notices my gaze, she reverts back to normal. 

The clapping eventually dies down, and our teacher clears his throat.

“It seems like this was a very productive lesson after all.” He says. “Hiding your true strength to reveal it at an optimal moment. Understanding the value of friendship and protecting your comrades.” His gaze locks on me before moving to Sayaka. “Learning when it is and isn’t appropriate to speak your mind, and being a gracious winner _and_ loser. These are all valuable lessons to learn, and I sincerely hope that every single one of you has taken away something from this today.” 

“Everyone is dismissed from this lesson. I want you to _reflect_ on what you’ve seen today and begin considering your own actions based on some of what you’ve learned. I expect all of you to begin applying these lessons to yourself. Be sure to arrive at your next class on time. Dismissed.” 

_Hah…he makes it sound like he’s letting us off easy with an early end, but his homework assignment is to change as a person. Ridiculous._

Hiding my true strength until a good moment? Yeah, still doing that. 

_Understanding the value of friendship?_

Was that what I was doing? Friendship? My motivation there was to protect a friend? Is that really it? But I’ve just met Setsuna, haven’t I? I don’t even think I know her real last name. We aren’t,,,friends, are we?

_Was I really protecting Setsuna? From Sayaka?_

I shake my head, dismissing those thoughts. Sayaka isn’t a bad person, and Setsuna isn’t some helpless girl. She’s a ninja. She can handle herself, after all. 

The _sealer_ in question is nowhere to be found. I’m a little disappointed until I remember what she told me.

_Rooftop at lunch? Well, I guess it is our lunch period right now, isn’t it?_

_…_

When I arrive on the rooftop, I find the black-haired girl faced away from the entrance, staring up at the sky. 

“Hey, Setsuna.” I greet her. She perks up, turning around to face me. 

“Hello, Yuki.” She motions behind her, towards the rooftop. “I wanted to talk to you alone.” 

“You’re lucky we got out early, then.” I remark. “At lunch, a good third of the school comes up here with the same expectation of emptiness, and meet all the people with the same idea.” 

“Ah. I’ll remember that.” We walk out, closer to the edge of the building. Eventually, she finds a spot she likes and sits down, lifting her bag from her shoulder. 

“You’re…probably confused about a lot of things, right?” She starts off quietly.

“Indeed. Firstly, your last name?” 

She shakes her head. “It’s what I go by, but not really mine. I’m an orphan. Don’t know who my parents are.” 

I wince. So her parents abandoned her, then. If they were just dead, she would still have their real name. 

“I can understand that. I also don’t have a last name.” I say.

“Ah. I’m sorry for that. It…sucks, doesn’t it?” 

_Not for the reasons you might think, but…_

“Yeah.” 

She swallows. “That’s why…I wanted to thank you, Yuki.” 

“Thank me?” I ask. “You already have, haven’t you?”

She shakes her head. “I could hear what that girl was saying. You stood up for me.” 

“I did?” 

Setsuna glances at me. “I transfer in. A girl starts talking shit about me behind my back. You break what is apparently a consistent streak of draws and absolutely destroy her publicly. It’s pretty obvious.” 

_It…is? I guess when you put it like that, it_ does _make sense._

Huh. I didn’t think I could _have_ that kind of motivation. Setsuna…what are you _doing_ to me?

“So…thanks.” She says, a genuine smile blossoming onto her face. 

“N-No problem.” I reply, a little caught off guard. She studies me curiously.

“You’re really not what I expected you to be at all.” She says softly. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Your aberration. I expected you to be a lot colder. I expected you to kill me. But instead, you’ve been protecting me this whole time. You saved my life once, and spared it, too. Now in school, you’re looking out for me and making sure people aren’t spreading rumors. And, of course, when we first met, you could have just let me be…but instead, you stepped in to help.”

I tilt my head. “If you were so scared…why did you come to this school, then?” I ask.

“Because…” She swallows heavily, looking down. “Because…I wanted to feel the kindness that would lead someone to save someone like me…I wanted to see, were you just…was it just by chance…?” 

_Oh._

So she…just wanted to feel cared about, then? No, not quite…she wanted to…

How…how lonely must you be to feel something like _that?_

_Did you save my life…because I meant something? Or was it an accident?_

“I…don’t regret it.” I say softly. Her head whips upwards.

“Even though you revealed your secret…?!” 

“I wouldn’t have let you die for that.” I reply flatly.

“Ah.” She flushes. “I’m…I’m glad to hear that.” 

I shake my head. She’s as messed up as I am in the head. Though, the attitude isn’t too uncommon amongst ninja — sacrificing someone for the sake of a mission or important goal. That’s something we all must accept, even if the sacrifice is yourself. 

But still…killing someone completely innocent just to protect my secret? Someone like Setsuna, who…just wants companionship? I…I don’t know if I could do that. 

“So are we…are we really friends, then?” Setsuna asks shyly. “You said…”

 _“It’s that sometimes they have_ friends _who take offense, and they might decide to do something about it!”_

My own words hit me. So even back then, I had been thinking…

I’ve never had a _friend_ before. This could be…interesting. 

I smile. “Yeah. We are.”

  
  



	3. (1.1.3) Convergence, Part 3

#  **1.1.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Convergence, Part 3**

The rest of the break period passes by fairly uneventfully. That isn’t to say it isn’t fun, though. We talk about a whole variety of subjects, mostly related to our history. And in the process, I learn quite a bit about her.

Setsuna was abandoned by her parents in front of the orphanage, although she doesn’t know for what reason. She spent her early years as a normal child, a non-User, and liked to read a lot. As a result, the library was a place she frequently visited during her formative years. 

It was through books that the dream of being a ninja of Alune began to grow on her. She devoured books on qi theory, on simple fundamentals, and practiced by sneaking into the library as much as she could. Though she was frequently caught, the librarians thankfully realized her complete lack of malice and instead offered her tips and tricks. 

But, despite the work she put in, training her body and mind, she wasn’t born with the gift of qi. 

Well, that isn’t quite correct. All people have their own qi, but plenty can’t _manipulate_ it. They can’t utilize their internal qi, can’t draw it out into a usable form. We’re not sure why yet. But, for whatever the reason, she wasn’t a User, and therefore, she couldn’t be a ninja. But that didn’t stop her from trying to become one anyway.

One day, she met a ninja at the library who listened to her dream, and introduced her to the world of seals. With seals, he said, she could _make herself into_ a ninja. By using seals to draw qi from the air into her body, she could then utilize and wield that qi. It wouldn’t be her own, not completely, but she could use it to power seals. 

She had to design her system from scratch — a means to seal qi into her body and to release it when she wanted to. It took _two years_ of constant learning and research and testing before she felt ready to place it on her own body. But, eventually, she was done. He primed the seals for her — and they succeeded. 

She wasn’t satisfied with that, of course. She kept working to do better and better. Progress has been slow, though — it’s hard to make much more progress than what she’s already done. But her goal has been achieved. Although she’ll forever be on the weaker end, she _can_ be a ninja. 

And no matter what, she will be.

She hadn’t planned on joining the Academy, but then she met a certain ninja that saved her life. And she wanted to join him. In the end, it was all _luck_. A guess on the Academy he attended, based on location…from there, a request to join a certain class and, well, that’s that. 

_It’s a lot of work for a dream so fragile. I still don’t understand_ why _she wants to be a ninja so much, but I suppose it would mean more to her, a purpose she can cling onto and be useful with. If she was abandoned by her parents, then a purpose…_

_Is that okay, though?_

I shake my head. It isn’t my choice. In the end, her dream is…well, it’s hers. She can do with it what she pleases. 

After lunch comes physical training. It would seem to go against all reason to put the most physically intensive course immediately after lunch, but that in itself is a sort of lesson and training. 

_Know your limits. Don’t overindulge._

It’s also a stamina and discipline lesson. Even if you feel sick…those kinds of feelings can’t be allowed to stop you as a ninja. So without fail, even from the very first year, the most physically intensive class is placed immediately after lunch. People learn pretty quickly with motivation like that.

“Close-combat practice today, everyone. Find a partner.”

I don’t even have to ask — Setsuna immediately steps closer to me. 

“Can I—“

“Sure.” 

She smiles, relieved. 

For the first fifteen minutes, we spar. Her method of combat is unorthodox — definitely not based on the Academy style, which is mostly straightforward blocking and countering, a ‘hard’ style. Instead, she seems to use a ‘soft’ style, which relies more on deflection and dodging. It suits her, but she isn’t quite as good with it as it needs to be. 

The former relies on power — the latter, skill. Although she’s quite fast and looks plenty skilled, she lacks the reflexes. It’s something she clearly knows, based on her frustrated look every time I knock her down. I don’t dare to take it easy on her, though. Because as much as I hate to do it, this _is_ a very important life skill she has to learn if she’s determined to be a ninja. But even knowing this, it doesn’t get any easier to constantly knock her around.

After ten minutes of it, though, I pull a punch as it would have connected with her stomach. 

“Don’t stop!” She hisses. Her eyes focus on me as she shakes her head. “I need…I need this.”

“If you insist.” 

Thankfully, it ends shortly after. I help pick her up off the ground — she leans rather heavily on me, but manages to stand on her own after a few seconds.

“Ow.” She mumbles, rubbing at her side. 

“Sorry.” I reply, a little guiltily. We’ve just become friends officially, and here I am an hour later, beating her up. 

She shrugs. “It just shows how much farther I have to go. In this class, where are you ranked in physical combat?” 

“Second.” 

“Switch partners!” Our instructor says. 

“Who is first?” She asks.

“She’s walking here right now.” I say dryly.

“Hey, Yuki.” Sayaka says, before turning to the girl standing next to me. “Setsuna.”

“Good afternoon.” The sealer in question replies, utterly neutral. A tense knot of something forms in my chest. 

Sayaka turns back to me. “Care to fight me?” 

I frown. Her voice sounds a little off — confident, but not arrogant, I think. Huh. I was expecting her to be rather vengeful given what I did to her in the last class, but I can’t hear even a hint of it.

“Sure.” I reply, accepting her challenge. The knot relaxes.

_…Fear?_

“I’ll proctor this fight.” Setsuna says brightly. “Try not to get your ass kicked too much, Yuki.”

“I’ll try my best.” I reply dryly. Sayaka’s an excellent close-combat fighter, utilizing a similar style to Setsuna, but, well, she’s faster, stronger, and more skilled in it. And she pretty regularly ‘kicks my ass’. 

The sealer jumps away a good distance, to ensure she won’t get caught in the crossfire. To be honest, I’m a little surprised Sayaka is willing to let her be the judge — I would have been concerned about potential bias in her place. 

“Here for revenge?” I ask, curiously. 

“I thought about it.” Sayaka admits. “But…honestly, isn’t that how it goes in every single story ever? A pointless cycle of vengeance that wastes everyone’s time and hurts people? I don’t really want to be a character in that kind of story. So I’ll beat you up, but not because of what you did, but to prove a point to myself. I know I’m not weak.” She clenches her fists. “You may be the number one student in our class for the ninja arts, but I’ll defend my title in close-quarters combat.” 

I nod, taking my stance. “Then I’ll challenge you once more, and give it my all.” 

The whispers surround us. 

_“A grudge match?”_

_“She’s going to kick his ass!”_

_“Would you people fuck off and mind your own business?”_

Huh. Didn’t expect that last one, and from her of all people…

“She’s a good person after all, huh?” Sayaka murmurs, almost too softly for me to hear. “No wonder you chose to defend her.” 

I nod. 

“Alright. Ready.” She says.

“Ready.” 

“Go!” Setsuna shouts.

The second she hears that, Sayaka races to close the distance, covering the small gap between us in a second. I raise my arm to deflect her first strike, seeking to take advantage of her charge to aim for her side. Having already anticipated my action, she smoothly rotates out of range and tries to go for a leg sweep.

I jump upwards, aiming to stomp on her extended leg on the way down, but she performs a strange flip that catches my descending foot and kicks upwards, sending me off balance. 

I manage to catch myself on my hands and flip to regain my balance as she comes in again. We trade a series of punches and kicks before I detect an opening and lunge inside her guard— 

—in the same instant, she nimbly slides out, having anticipated that — _a feint —_ and launches a spinning kick that I just barely manage to guard. The effort puts me off balance, though, and her followup tackle forces me to the ground. 

I block a vicious punch to the head that would have probably knocked me out entirely, and respond with an unorthodox headbutt that disorients her long enough for me to shove her off entirely. 

Despite that, she _still_ manages to catch me in the face with a blind kick, knocking me back to the ground. 

We both quickly get back on our feet, ready to keep going. This time, I take the lead, running towards her. My stamina is higher than hers, so if I can force her to keep exerting herself, she’ll get tired and make a mistake I can capitalize on. 

But despite all my efforts, I’m not able to pin her down. Eventually she capitalizes on a mistake of my own and slips under my guard, punching me hard in the stomach and robbing me of air. 

_Damn it! She’s so fast and hard to catch!_

She follows up with an uppercut that makes me see stars, but she it was at an awkward angle for her — she isn’t able to put her full force behind the hit, so it doesn’t quite knock me out. 

Even so, it doesn’t matter — her followup kick smacks me down. 

“I give.” I reply, voice muffled by the dirt. I could keep fighting, but it’s pretty clear that I won’t get anywhere. 

“Aww. Good fight, Yuki.” Sayaka says, sounding mildly disappointed. “Here, I’ll help you up.” 

I grab her outstretched hand in a mirror of the events a few hours ago, and she pulls me up, a satisfied smile on her face.

“Want to go again?” She offers.

“Ugh, no.” I reply. “Unless you open the rules to allow _reinforcement_.” 

She makes a face. Her soft-touch style doesn’t do well against reinforcement, so I’d have a massive advantage. We’ve fought in that manner before, and I decisively won simply because deflecting something with the force of a sledgehammer with your arms isn’t exactly ideal.

Once she learns how to utilize qi to give her blows cutting power, though, her style will massively spike in power and she’ll have the advantage again. That won’t be for a while, though.

Basically, in a full fight, I’d soundly beat her. But, if we take away the supernatural aspects and look at pure skill and strength, she easily defeats me. Hence, the physical arts. 

“Ha. Well, we’re even now.” She says, wiping her hands off on her dress. 

“I suppose so.” I say, bemused. “Hey, look, I’m sorry about what I did earlier.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure.” She replies, a little absentmindedly. “It’s hard to be mad about it, to be honest. You absolutely humiliated me in front of the whole class, and that’s something that won’t go away any time soon. But after I finished crying—“

_That’s quite the honest admission, isn’t it?_

“—I started thinking about everything our teacher said. Especially about valuing friendship and protecting people. And it made me wonder — why do I want to be a ninja? Why did I sign up for all of this again? And I couldn’t figure out _why._ ” 

She kicks a rock. “Somewhere along the road I started being a jerk. Not just to Setsuna, but…in general. I stopped taking this life seriously. But if I go out into the real world like that, I’m going to die.” 

“If you don’t know why you want to be a ninja, why haven’t you quit?” I ask. She flashes a bittersweet smile. 

“And do what? There isn’t much else worth doing out there, and I don’t want to become a civilian.” She says. “That’s just not my style.” 

“You know, you can always change your mind on that, so long as you’re alive.” I advise. 

“Mm. Which is why I want to be stronger.” She says, cracking her knuckles. “I’m going to be the very best so I don’t die while I make my choice.”

 _Huh. There’s a lot of drive in those eyes, where it didn’t really exist before. Perhaps she_ could.

“Go for it.” I say. “We’ll see if you do what you say you will.” 

She smiles mysteriously. “I suppose we shall. See you around, Yuki.” She heads to the other side of the field, where she begins running through a series of fluid movements, fighting an imaginary opponent. 

Well, that’s been taken care of. I turn to our temporary proctor.

“What’re you doing?” I ask curiously. Setsuna’s crouched on the ground, drawing in the dirt with a stick that she’s managed to find.

“Ah…just practicing my handwriting.” 

_Handwriting? Why on ea—oh, seals._

“Oh.”

“I thought she was going to beat me up.” The grey-eyed girl says without looking up. “As revenge.”

“I did too.” I admit. “When she challenged me instead, I was wondering if she was going to try to do the same thing I did to her. She had the power to, for sure.”

“But she didn’t.” 

“Yeah. I was surprised.” 

_Perhaps she’s already changed a little?_

The rest of the class is mostly general training, and nothing especially interesting happens. Stealth Training is, sadly, almost entirely lecture-based today, and it too passes by uneventfully. The sun’s low in the sky by the time we’re released from that class. Setsuna makes her way to my side, looking a little tired.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Yes.” She replies, glancing around as if looking for other people. No one’s really paying attention, though.

“Alright. Want me to walk you home?” I ask, then pause. “You’d have to show me where you live, since I don’t actually know where you live.”

“Oh! That would be good. Actually, since I’m in the Academy, they want me to move a bit closer, so I can settle in and everything.” She lowers her voice. “I have my belongings in a storage scroll, so I’m ready to go there now.” 

“Sure. Do you know your address?”

“Um, the street is…” She tells me the name.

“Interesting.” I say, surprised. “We’re going to be neighbors, then. That’s the same one I live on.” 

“Really?” Setsuna says. “That’s great! I’ll come over and we can train together…um, if that’s okay with you?” 

I smile slightly. “I wouldn’t mind that all. Well, let’s head out then, shall we?” 

…

I only live about two kilometers away from the South Academy, a trivial distance for any ninja. Soon enough, we’re facing the street — all the houses are plain cookie-cutter wood and stone designs, probably raised by a _constructor._ Ninja skills can be used in so many ways both inside and outside of combat, if you’re willing to be creative about it. 

I stop in front of my house — it’s close to the intersection. Something at my mailbox catches my interest. 

_Oh, there’s mail? I’d forgotten to check it this morning. Hopefully it isn’t too urgent._

“Hold on, Setsuna, let me check my box real quick.” 

“Sure.” She says, much more relaxed now that she isn’t surrounded by our fellow Academy students. 

_That’s something interesting I’ve noticed about her. She’s pretty tense at school, like she doesn’t know how to handle other people. But when it’s just us, she unwinds quite a bit. I guess that’s trust?_

“Hm…right, my monthly check…”

Every month, all students enrolled in the Academy receive a check. The amount varies based on your living situation — mine is enough to pay for my various expenses and housing with relative ease.

“The Department of Housing? That’s a new one.” 

The Department of Housing is a subsection of the government that, well, their job is obvious. Regulating housing, building laws, all of that. I’ve never had a problem with them because I haven’t cared about what my house looks like. Keeping it functional was my only concern, and since the people in the Department are often retired _ninja_ , that’s one place our interests align. So what’s up with…this…?

“I’m going to have a housemate?” I read, bewildered. “Due to…unforeseen circumstances…?” 

“Oh.” Setsuna says. “This is the house I’m supposed to come to, then?”

I whirl around. “Wait — Setsuna — _you’re_ my new roommate?” 

In response, she holds out a card. A card with — with my address?

“You get pulled out of the orphanage if you are an Academy student.” She mumbles. “And I guess they didn’t want me to live on my own...” 

I sigh. “Well, I can’t complain. This is one of the better outcomes, I suppose — can you imagine what it’d be like if Sayaka had gotten paired up with me?” 

“S-So…you’re okay with this?” She asks shyly. 

I blink. “I mean, it’s not like I have much choice. But there’s worse options. I’m not upset about it.” 

The sealer smiles slightly. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to pull my weight!” 

“I’m sure you will. Well, I guess it’s a good thing we get along then, right?” 

“Yes.” 

It’s still somewhat muted, but — her happiness is clearly visible, nonetheless. At having a real home, even if she has to share it. 

“Show me around?” She asks, eyes shining. 

“Uh, there isn’t…that much to show, but sure…?” 

I take her around the place, lighting up the lamps as I go. It’s an extremely basic design — one bedroom, one kitchen, one bathroom, a storage room, and a living room, with a handful of closets spaced about. There are larger homes for those who have multiple occupants — such as those living with their parents. But, as that doesn’t apply to me, I have a smaller setup. 

_I guess I’ll sleep on the couch outside, then. There’s only one bed._

“Doors lock on the inside and outside with bolts. The hot water runs for about an hour every day. The inside lock in the storage room is broken.”

The color scheme favors white and brown, although there’s also a decent bit of grey. Unsurprising, given the composition of the structure — primarily stone, proof of an earth _constructor’s_ design. There aren’t too many personal belongings scattered about — I do my best to keep my living space _clean_ — but that also means there aren’t too many…trinkets? Mementos? Things that exist for a reason other than survival and lifestyle?

Setsuna drifts towards one such belonging, looking at it curiously. “What’s this?”

She’s looking at a _snow globe_. There are delicate figurines inside dressed in winter clothing, captured in the act of ice-skating. White powder designed to resemble snow coats the floor of the globe and a glass dome covers the whole thing so nothing falls out. It has been meticulously and carefully polished every single day.

These kinds of things are fairly common as toys and trinkets, but this one in particular is important to me.

“The only thing of my parents’ I’ve allowed myself to keep.” I reply.

“Ah.” She murmurs. “I…I meant more along the lines of… _what_ is it?”

I blink. “You’ve never seen a snow globe before?” 

“No.”

“Well, they’re mostly for decoration. You can also do this with them.” I pick up the trinket and shake it up and down before presenting it to her.

“Oh…!” The ‘snow’ slowly falls down from the top. “It’s…pretty.” 

“Play with it whenever you want.” I say, shrugging. “Try not to break it, though.”

_On that subject, I’d better…_

“You’re charging it with qi?” She asks. 

“Yeah. I can reinforce this thing with some of my qi and it will be a good deal harder to break. It wears off pretty fast, so I have to do it every day, or there’s not much point.” 

“This thing is really important to you, then…?” Setsuna murmurs. 

“Hm…” I trail off. “Maybe? It doesn’t really matter.” She frowns, but doesn’t say anything further on it as I move away. 

“This here is your bedroom.” I slip inside. 

“Where’s yours?” She asks.

I go silent. 

“Yuki, I’m not making you sleep on the couch!” 

I blithely ignore her, opening the door. “I’ll change the sheets out—“

“Yuki.” 

“—and I’m pretty sure I have some extra pillows in one of the closet that you can use—“

“I’ll sleep on the floor.” 

“What.” 

“You heard me.” She says defiantly. “I’ll sleep on the floor.” 

_Oh, so that’s the game she’s playing?_

“That’s fine. What you do in your bedroom isn’t my business. I’ll sleep on the couch in the living room.” 

Setsuna crosses her arms. “I’m used to sleeping in _less than ideal_ conditions. I don’t need the bed.” 

“And I’ll have to get used to not using it when I go out on missions.” I reply evenly. “I don’t need it either.”

“Are you _really_ going to let the bed remain unused for this?” 

“Well, if it bothers you so much, you should use the bed.” 

She deflates with a sound like a popped balloon. “Fine.” 

_I hadn’t expected her to give up on it. But good. I wasn’t planning on budging either. I do have certain duties as a friend and host, after all._

“Good. I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding.” She glares at me, but doesn’t protest further.

“Anyways, you should start unpacking. I’ll help you move around your things.” I try changing the subject.

“Ah, okay.” She says, perking up. “Let’s go to the storage area, then.” It looks like the prospect of further exploring her new home has successfully distracted her from the struggle with the bedroom. 

Once there, she quickly begins the process of unpacking all of her things. A shocking variety of sealing material comes out — paper, ink, a red liquid kept in glass vials that I suspect is blood — dozens of various scrolls — more paper, more ink, a decent pile of paper money—

“Is that really something you should be showing me?” I ask dryly. 

“I’m trusting you with my life by sleeping here, aren’t I? Compared to that, the money doesn’t matter.” She replies without any hesitation.

_That…that is a very good point. And, well…she knows about my Ice abilities, too…_

Eventually she manages to unpack everything. I stare at her supplies. 

_There…there isn’t anything personal in here, is there? Even I have a few things, but she has absolutely nothing. It’s probably best not to bring that up, though._

Once that’s taken care of, there’s not much else to do. I leave her to her own devices and head outside into the yard. There, I practice my physical combat, snapping out rapid combinations and working on ingraining them into my reflexes, an instant reaction to certain situations. 

After some time, Setsuna comes outside holding some paper and ink. 

“Could I have some of your blood?”

“My blood? Why?”

“You’ll see.”

“Mm…fine.” 

I watch her, a little bemusedly, as she plants seals around the corners of the house before retreating back inside. 

_Security?_

As it turns out, that’s exactly what it is. It’ll alert her if anyone who doesn’t have the right blood passes through the perimeter of the walls of the house. That way, it doesn’t detect passerby who stray onto our property line, for example. 

“It isn’t perfect, but it might be useful.” She explains. I accept her suggestion.

I cook dinner for us — nothing complicated, just curry. She elects to set the table and clean the dishes, admitting that she doesn’t have any idea how to cook. I offer to teach her, something she gladly accepts. 

After that, we talk to pass the time, although it’s somewhat stunted as we’re both practicing reinforcement as we do so. Even so, I enjoy it. 

Afterwards, we shower, clean up, and soon enough— 

“Tired?” I ask. 

She yawns in response, apparently so exhausted that she can barely keep her eyes open. 

“I’ll help you get to the bed.” I volunteer. 

“Mmhh…thaaanks…” She replies drowsily. I help her up, letting her drape an arm around my shoulder as I take on the majority of her weight.

_She’s pretty light._

We make our way to the bedroom. But, suddenly, as my foot steps over the threshold—

—I’m abruptly shoved forward. Losing my balance, I catch myself on the floor and turn around, betrayed.

The door slams in my face. Half a second later, I hear the outside bolt slide closed. 

“You sleep on the bed!” She shouts through the wood.

_You’ve got to be kidding me._

“I’ll sleep on the floor!” I threaten. 

“That’s fine!” She retorts. “What you do in your bedroom isn’t my business. I’ll sleep on the couch in the living room.” 

_Damn you, Setsuna._

Well, the door may not be an option, but I can fit through the window…no, wait, it only opens halfway because it’s jammed. Maybe if I kick it ope— 

_Wait, am I really considering breaking my own window over this? Am I_ really _?_

That realization brings my plans to a halt as I seriously think about what I was just about to do. 

“Hey, Setsuna, look, this is a dumb argument. Look, the bed’s plenty big enough for both of us. How about we both sleep on it today, and tomorrow, since it’s our off day, we can go look for an extra mattress so we both have beds to sleep on?” 

There’s a moment of silence while she considers this. 

“You promise you won’t make me sleep alone?” She asks plaintively. 

“Wha—wasn’t this about sleeping on the bed or not?” I ask, confused.

“I was…I was going to sneak in when you were sleeping…and lay down next to you…” She admits. 

_Alright, I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting that._

“I promise…?” I say, still a little bewildered.

Apparently it’s enough to satisfy her, as the bolt slides unlocked and she opens the door, looking a little worried. I sigh when I see her expression. 

_I can’t stay mad at that._

“Why do you want me to sleep next to you so badly?” I question. “Are you scared of being alone?” 

She hesitates, not meeting my gaze. Swallows heavily. “Y-Yes.” I can see how much effort it took for her to answer honestly, and decide not to press the topic further. 

“Alright, alright. Fine. Let’s go to bed, then?” 

She nods, making her way towards the bed. It looks like her exhaustion from earlier wasn’t just an act — she collapses onto it pretty heavily, worming underneath the sheets.

“You sleep fully clothed?” I ask curiously, beginning the process of undressing for bed.

As if having been reminded, she works off her own top and bottom from underneath the blanket, leaving on her underwear. I slip into bed a comfortable distance away from her—

“Are you sure this is okay?”

I shrug. “It doesn’t especially matter to me.” I lay back on the bed, pulling the covers up. After shifting around a little, she manages to find a position she’s comfortable with, too. 

“Good night, Yuki…”

“Good night, Setsuna.” 

_This isn’t so bad, I suppose._

In no time at all, I manage to fall asleep.

…

“… **No!** ” 

My eyes instantly snap open, and I’m vaulting into a standing position before I’m even fully awake. 

“Setsuna—!?” 

My housemate clutches at her chest, eyes glimmering with unshed tears as she gasps for breath. 

“Ah…Yuki…I’m sorry for…f-for waking you…” 

“Never mind that. What happened?”

“…Just…a nightmare…it’s okay, I’ll be…fine…” 

I frown. I’m not sure how to help her. 

“Are you sure?”

“Y-Yeah…s-sorry…” 

“…Okay. If there’s anything I can do…?” I make my way back to the bed, tucking myself back in. 

“There is…” She swallows. “Could I…could I hold your hand? Just…just until I fall back asleep again.” 

_A good night’s rest versus mild inconvenience…_

“Sure.” I reach out my hand to her, and she takes it. 

_Fragile. But she has the calluses that come from a lot of writing._

“It’s…cool…?” 

“Is that bad?”

She shakes her head quickly, her grip tightening. “No. Not at all.” She smiles slightly. “Not at all.” 

Holding my hand really does seem to help her, as she falls asleep only a few minutes later. 

_I don’t need to hold her hand anymore, now…but…_

“…Good night, Setsuna.”

  
  



	4. (1.1.4) Convergence, Closing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every Closing chapter is a bonus! For Act 1 specifically, they will be book excerpts. Thereafter, we'll have short peeks into the perspective of other characters! All of these are canon, and most will have important information, so treat them like real chapters!

#  1.1.4 Spellborne — Book 1   
Convergence, Closing

## Naturalization by Francis Kozakura and Alice Dawn  
Preface

Every day and every moment, we are surrounded by the energies of the world. Qi, magic, life. They ebb and flow, invisible tides that carry us to and from. 

Perhaps with a fuller view of our history, we could have come to see just how we got here, and how our world came to be. But what we know is so very little. The books of our ancestors have long since burnt away from the storms and fire that they razed the world with, and what’s been left after many, many years is what we have and know now. 

And with that world rose the first wielders of qi, of magic. And some of those Users were touched, gaining certain gifts. A curse, perhaps, depending on one’s point of view. 

These gifts were not manmade, though. Nor were they touched with the intent of mankind. No, they were altogether something more primal, more natural. Such were the beginnings of the Incarnations, though far and few between. 

Though they wielded a power far greater than that of their brethren, they served those below them, using their powers in order to secure the safety and future of those who were to come after. Their spells, their magics, their powers, all were far above what the ordinary User of today could hope to even conceive of. 

Underneath their hands, the world warped. Their naturalized powers left an imprint on the world, creating strange phenomenon that could never be erased from the world. 

The Great Tree of Oshiroikishi, and its Eternal Winter. The Charged Caves. The Fire Mountain. Arcacia’s Great Forest. The Shifting Valley. The Shimmering Falls of Alune. 

But it came with a terrible cost…for each and every one of these Users burned away their very lives. 

The Will of the People changed. No one wanted to be an Incarnation, not at the cost of their life-force. And so they vanished from the world for some time. 

But every once in a while, there would be someone who would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, willing to dedicate their lives to their elements. And those people were revered and feared, both, even as humanity grew increasingly disconnected with the powers they wielded. Eventually settling into a mere four primary affinities, humanity regarded everything else as an aberration, an oddity, sometimes to be feared, and always to be used. 

And so those aberrations began to fade away, too, becoming increasingly rarer. 

That led to the status quo of the time period this book reviews — where qi and magic were wielded as wholly separate entities, and the powers of our ancestors were regarded as nothing more than simple legend by all but the keenest. 

Welcome, Reader. 

Welcome to the Naturalization. 


	5. (1.2.1) Guardian, Part 1

#  **1.2.1 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Guardian, Part 1**

Waking up is near-instant, as I’ve trained it to be.

“Good morning.” 

My hand nearly reaches for the knife I keep under my pillow before I finish assessing the situation. 

“Good morning, Setsuna.” 

She smiles, her hand still gripping mine. 

“You seem to have slept well enough.” I observe. 

“Yeah. Thanks to…thanks to you…” She averts her gaze. 

“Do you normally sleep poorly because of your nightmares?”

“…Usually, I do not sleep well at all.” 

I hum thoughtfully. “Then, would you like me to hold your hand every night?” 

“You’re okay with that?” 

I shrug. “It will help me sleep better.”

Setsuna winces. 

“—And I don’t mind if it would make you feel better.” I add hastily. 

She bites her lip, then nods. “Then, please.” 

_I’m surprised at how plainly emotive she is. She_ definitely _wasn’t like this at school, but I’ve already noticed that she warms up when it’s just the two of us. Or at least, when we’re out of the public eye. That’s when she stops being so quiet and relaxes a bit._ _So which is the act? The obvious answer is that her public face is the persona, but…I don’t actually know. Perhaps both are masks._

_But does it really matter? I’ve already committed myself to trusting her wholeheartedly, because the only alternative is murder. Over time, I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Perhaps she’ll open up to me of her own free will, if I give her some time._

_…Why am I thinking about this? I’d better get up before I have any more strange thoughts._

“Are you ready to get up?” I ask.

“Er…yes?”

“You’ll have to let go of my hand, then.”

“Ah!” She quickly pulls away, leaving me to stand up. “Well, mind if I shower, then?” Setsuna asks. 

“Go for it. I’ll start breakfast.” 

Eating is a fairly quick affair — rice and fish. We eat in mostly silence — I’m not too much of a morning person even if I’m able to force my body to function as if I were one. Setsuna doesn’t seem particularly inclined to break the silence, apparently lost in thought herself.

Afterwards, though — we did have plans, didn’t we? 

_“_ I’ve been meaning to head to the library and pick up some books. Want to come with?” 

_Specifically, I was thinking about looking into qi theory, to see if I could figure out what’s going on with you._

She agrees with that, and after I shower myself, we head out after taking our usual cocktail of pills. Immediately, that mask of hers falls into place — although she remains close to me, it’s at an appropriate distance, and she doesn’t speak.

_Hm…_

The library — well, the one I’m looking for — is situated close to the center of the city. Once there, I immediately make a beeline for the _qi theory_ section. Recognizing one of the author’s names immediately, I pull the book off the shelf, sit at a nearby table, and begin reading — analyzing learned information, combining it with other tidbits, revisiting previous assumptions…

Qi is something that isn’t extremely well understood, despite our constant usage of it. It takes extreme levels of control to even begin seriously researching qi…and most of the people with that kind of control are also very, _very_ good ninja, who are focused on the practical aspects of qi, not the theoretical effects. 

_Time to do some thinking._

How were seals invented in the first place? Who could have come up with such a ridiculous idea — let alone _have it work?_ The concept of words having innate power is clearly a strange one, but…the existence of seals alone demonstrates otherwise. 

_Then again…doesn’t Arcacian Magic have their runes?_ _I guess there’s precedent…_

How do seals work, based on the nature of qi as we understand it? The spiritual function of energy, known as _Psychia,_ guides the form. The physical energy, called _Potentia_ , gives it power. _Etheria_ , life energy...must be recycled, right? If using qi — taking it from your body, actually, which is what most techniques do — if that consumed life energy, Users would fall over dead within a few techniques.

Where does that extra energy go, then? If _potentia_ and _Psychia_ is used in techniques and seals, then where does that life element go? 

The author of the book posits the idea that every individual has only a finite amount of life energy, and that the majority of techniques do not, in fact, involve any of it. After all, it serves no purpose. The techniques that _do_ use life energy are some of the most forbidden or destructive ones — _Blackfire_ , for example, the author believes to consume a portion of life energy to create. 

I’m not able to get farther into it before I’m interrupted, however.

“This is a surprise.” A familiar voice above me mutters. I’m able to place it without even looking—

“Hello, Sayaka. Fancy running into you here.” I glance up. The blue-haired girl in question is holding at least six different books in her arms. 

_Advanced Qi Theory, Volume 2…The Energy Trinity…Elements and Aberrations…An Analysis of Wind…and, wait, that looks familiar—_

“Are you also a fan of Miss Kozakura’s work?” I ask. She’s holding a copy of the same volume I am. 

“Yep! She presents some really interesting ideas. Mind if I sit next to you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She does, opening her copy of the book I’m reading. 

_“A Treatise on the Nature of Qi” by Hikaru Kozakura, also commonly known as the “Goddess of Mercy”. She has a regeneration aberration that allows her to rapidly heal damage to herself at a rate far exceeding that of literally anything else, beyond even the best of healers. It’s not too dissimilar to my own healing thanks to my Ice aberration, but hers is vastly superior. To kill her, you’d have to literally disintegrate her body_ and _life energies— if any of her qi remained, it could be used to reconstruct herself._

 _If I recall correctly, she once demonstrated her aberration by_ setting herself on fire. _She healed faster than the fire could hurt her._

To take advantage of that incredible power, she became a medic and figured out how to manifest her regenerative power to work on others, not just her

And so began the rise of the so-called Goddess of Mercy. She has an unprecedented tenth-star qualification as a Healer and with her aberration, multiple element masteries, and is one of the few people who’ve figured out qi absorption, or the ability to absorb ambient qi from the air and store it.

_An absolute monster of a ninja. Despite this, she’s actually just a petite woman in her late twenties._

She doesn’t take missions anymore, though. She stays inside the village and works as a full time healer and researcher, with a handful of apprentices under her belt. And, by using this knowledge of hers, as well as her incredible qi control, she’s able to shed new light on old ideas and make groundbreaking strides in research on qi theory. 

By all accounts, she’s an incredibly kind and caring woman, not suited for ninja life in the slightest. But she’s determined, innovative, and intelligent, making her an exceptional researcher. 

And she’s one of forty such similar ninja. It’s with good reason that the village of Alune is considered the strongest in Lunaria, the ninja country. No other village has as many ninth-star ninja as we do — not by a long shot. 

“How do you feel about her opinion on life energy?” Sayaka asks, peering at me over her book.

“It’s pretty interesting.” I admit. “Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any counterexamples.” 

“Not even one?” She asks, with the tone of someone who knows something and knows that you don’t know it.

I close my eyes, thinking back through everything I’ve heard about and know on the topic, discovering and discarding ideas, collating and synthesizing…

“Nothing that isn’t rumor.” I reply. She tilts her head.

“It’s true that rumor is a poor source of information, but this is more of a trend than anything.”

“You mean…of ninja that are able to temporarily produce more power than they should?” I ask. “When their lives are in danger, or in the protection of a comrade?” That kind of story is extremely familiar — war tales, usually. 

“Yes. Don’t you think that kind of thing would be one of the exceptions? It’s almost certainly true, after all. Even if it isn’t, there definitely should have been a section on it — but I checked the whole book, and it wasn’t there. And if I was able to think of it, and you did too, why didn’t she?” Sayaka asks — and this time, it sounds like a genuine question, rather than a rhetorical one.

I close my eyes, thinking. 

_Can untrained ninja force life energy out of themselves to empower techniques through raw willpower or emotional stress?_

Almost certainly…yes. The phenomenon of unusual power in stressful situations is easy enough to confirm through countless stories, time and time again, of ninja who have forced themselves to the very brink. 

Linking the two as a causation? Perhaps it’s a stretch, but it’s not much of one. It’s a logical conclusion, after all. 

So then…why not include it? Let’s assume that Kozakura knows about this — which is almost certainly the case. So there must be a reason she _hasn’t_ , then, rather than a mistake or error…

Once I think about it like that, the answer isn’t hard to find. “It’s most likely because she doesn’t want to discourage ninja from _trying_ to pull that extra spark of energy out. If they know that doing so would burn away their life, some might hesitate — and in that kind of situation, hesitation would be fatal. That’s probably why she didn’t even include a section on it in the first place. She doesn’t want people to come to the conclusion we have.”

“Apologies for overhearing your conversation, but…yes, that is entirely correct.” A melodic voice speaks up from behind us. We whirl around — _I hadn’t even detected her, but she’s surprisingly close —_ and come to face with…

My mouth dries instantly. “Miss Kozakura, an honor.” 

The woman in front of us is a short young woman about a meter and a half tall, with black hair wrapped in a short ponytail. Warm brown eyes project a friendly aura, and match with the rest of her features to give her a very ‘beautiful’ look. She’s clothed in a simple white dress in a style similar to Sayaka — _maybe that’s where Sayaka gets it from. Hero worship, perhaps?_

A beautiful look, I’d said, but every fiber of my body recognizes that the woman in front of me could kill me in half a second without breaking a sweat.

She winces. “Please, drop the miss. It makes me feel really old.” 

“My apologies.” I respond instantly.

“Ah, you don’t have to apologize for that. It’s fine. But anyways, I can confirm that those bursts of unusual power involve life energy, _Etheria_ , in almost every situation I’ve ever heard of. However, when people do that kind of thing, they lose a bit of their Etheria. I don’t want people to hesitate to protect themselves or their comrades, and it’s not something that would be good for ninja at large to know. So I didn’t include it, and would prefer if you didn’t tell others. Of course, I’m sure plenty of people have already deduced the same conclusion you’ve reached, but, thankfully, the thought hasn’t spread.” She replies kindly, but seriously. I’ve no doubt that she’s gauging my own reactions as well.

“Of course. I won’t say anything.” I promise. Sayaka meekly nods, as well. 

“Thank you. I must say, I was quite surprised to hear someone so young hit upon that so fast. You two are of Academy age, aren’t you?” She asks.

“Y-Yes.” Sayaka squeaks out, apparently too intimidated to talk much.

“Sixth year, to be exact.” I clarify. 

She looks thoughtful. “A bit under two years…alright, assuming you’re still alive by the time you graduate and get on a team, please contact me when you hit fourth-star. You’ll be able to catch me at the hospital, of course. I expect you to be at _least_ a fifth-star healer by then, understand?”

My jaw drops. “Of course!” I hastily bow as deeply as I can manage.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t have more than a basic understanding of healing and anatomy. The fact of the matter is that I was just offered a potential apprenticeship by _the_ Goddess of Mercy herself. That simply isn’t something you ignore just because ‘you don’t specialize in healing’. 

“I’ll see you then.” She says, smiling. Then she turns to my companion.

“You two must be…hm, rivals, I’d guess?” 

“Yes, but…h-how did you know?” Sayaka stutters out. 

Miss Kozakura winks. “Call it woman’s intuition. You seem like a pretty talented girl yourself, so I’ll offer you the same opportunity. Fourth-star ninja, fifth-star healer.”

“Is…is this competitive?” I ask. 

“No, it won’t be. I don’t want you guys to hate each other, I want you two to help each other grow! So…the opportunity is for both of you. It doesn’t matter who gets there first; so long as you’re a fifth-star healer by the time you hit fourth-star level, I’ll take you on.” 

“I understand. Thank you so much…Kozakura?” I say, trying out her last name without a prefix. It sounds a little awkward, and by the look on her face, she agrees. 

“Ah, just call me Hikaru instead. You two will be my apprentices in the future anyways, so you can just use my first name. Speaking of which, may I have yours?”

“Sayaka Hoshiko.” The blunette mumbles awkwardly.

“I’m Yuki…” I trail off, not having a last name to give. She seems to understand instantly, nodding. 

“Sayaka and Yuki, then? I’ll be sure to remember those names.” She glances at the clock on the wall. “It seems like I really should be going now, unless you have any last questions for me…?” 

My mind races ahead, thinking overtime— 

“I have two, actually, if you don’t mind.” I blurt out, not too sure of the second one yet, but needing to stall her while I formulate it properly. 

“Go for it.”

“Firstly, do you regularly frequent this area? In other words, it was pure coincidence that you’re here, right?” I ask. 

_Shit, that was two questions!_

She looks mildly amused — I’ve no doubt that she caught my mistake. “Yes, I do, and it was. I tend to wander the libraries frequently — it’s part of my work as a researcher, after all.” She says, smiling. “Your other question?”

_Bless her soul._

“I…” I glance at Sayaka. 

_Risk of her saying something versus the potential good that an answer could bring…_

“I have a friend that isn’t a natural-born User, but wants to be a ninja anyways. I’m not sure of the specifics, but she designed a seal system that would absorb ambient qi and store it in her system for use, and had someone empower it.” Hikaru’s eyes glitter with interest. 

“This works as a stopgap to let her train to be a ninja, but it’s going to severely limit her growth. Is there anything on the medical side that could help her out?”

“That _is_ interesting.” She muses. “I’d have to check her out in person to give a better opinion, but there is probably a ritual or two out there that might help her." 

“Of course. Thank you so much.” I bow deeply.

“Ah, no problem. I’m always happy to give advice.” She smiles. “Well, I really should be off, since it doesn’t appear Miss Sayaka has any questions for me.” 

The blunette shakes her head. 

“Well, I’ll hope to see you two in a few years, then! Farewell, Yuki and Sayaka.” She waves, heading away to the exit.

“Farewell!” We call after her — quietly, of course. It’s still a library. 

Once she’s out of sight, Sayaka rushes me, wrapping me in a quick hug.

“Thankyousomuch!” She rushes out. “That really…we just…”

“Were offered an apprenticeship by the Goddess of Mercy herself? Yes.” It didn’t sound like it would be extremely in-depth, especially when you consider how much work she has, but…even so. People would kill to have this opportunity. 

“…I won’t say anything about Setsuna.” She promises. I give her a sharp look.

“Thank you.” I reply, but she shakes her head.

“No, I…I owe you, damn it. That wouldn’t have happened without you.” She replies.

“If you hadn’t said anything in the first place, I may not have figured anything out.” I retort. 

Sayaka shakes her head. “Even so…you’re the one she noticed. I just happened to be there.” 

I raise an eyebrow. “Is that really true, though? She noticed you on your own merits as a ninja, too. I didn’t have anything to do with that.” 

“I suppose that’s true.” She admits, sighing. “Seriously, Yuki…Thank you. I’ll find a way to repay you for this.” 

I shrug. “Be my rival, then. I don’t know. I don’t really _want_ anything.” 

“Your rival, huh?” She murmurs, evaluating me. “Yes…I can do that.” She puts her hands on her hips. “You’d better prepare yourself, Yuki! I’m going to beat you to the top!” 

I roll my eyes. “Act like that, and I’ll have to disown you as my rival.”

She grins. “You have a good heart, Yuki. Never change.” I blink.

“If you say so.” I reply blankly. 

“Anyways, it’s about time for me to go.” Sayaka says, standing up with her books in hand. “So…I’ll be off.” 

“Off to do what?” I ask curiously. She shrugs. 

“To be a better ninja, of course. I have a goal, for now. So I’ll reach it, and then I’ll see what I want from this world.” She departs without another word, leaving me with my thoughts.

_That was a bit more philosophical than I’d expected, but…she’s been struggling with identifying her purpose, hasn’t she? So I guess she doesn’t know where she’s going in this world, either. Although, maybe I’m looking too much into what could be just a simple deflection._

_Then again, am I any different? I still don’t know what purpose I have here. I still don’t understand why I want to be a ninja. I’ve always considered it the only path forward, but that isn’t true, is it?_

_Tch…but not taking this route…_

I’d have to leave Setsuna alone. Alone on her path and her dream.

The world of life as a civilian versus a ninja is just too _different_ . Without the fear of death, without the _demand_ for constant improvement, without the willingness to sacrifice…no. Our worlds are just too far apart. 

If I became a civilian, I’d lose my friend. It wouldn’t happen right away, but without a shadow of a doubt…

For all of Setsuna’s quirks, in such a short time she’s become someone I…value. She’s become meaningful to me on a level that no one ever has — although, perhaps, it’s because I’ve never _let_ anyone try. Walking away from her…would undoubtedly change _me_ as a person. And I don’t think it would be a change worth wanting. 

_How is it possible for someone like me to change so much in just a few short days?_

  
  



	6. (1.2.2) Guardian, Part 2

#  **1.2.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Guardian, Part 2**

I find a few more books, check them out with my basic ID, and hunt down Setsuna. As I’d expected, she’s sitting in the section regarding seals, with a pile of books and a small journal in front of her, where she’s rapidly scribbling notes in extremely neat handwriting.

_She really does have a talent for writing. I can’t write that fast, even in shorthand._

“Hey, Setsuna. How’s it going?” I ask, peering over her shoulder.

“Good.” She mutters distractedly, flipping the page in front of her before continuing to write. I glance down.

_‘The Divine Nature of the Second Dimension’?_

Let’s see…Oh? This talks about the _Void_ , the other dimension where sealed objects are rumored to be stored. Hm…this isn’t a topic I’m much familiar with at all. This is deep into the theory, then, rather than pure fundamentals. 

The author seems to be using…religious terms, I think, in his descriptions…is this the book of some strange cult? It’s hard to decipher what exactly he means, although I gather that his primary point is that the Void isn’t something that anything living makes it out of.

The page is flipped.

Rather than try to continue understanding this gibberish, I look down at Setsuna’s notes instead.

_Huh? I can barely read any of this. I’m able to make words out here and there, but…_

“Is this in a different language, or in code?” I ask, bewildered. She spares half a second to glance my way.

“In code, yes.” She smiles. “And in seals.”

Most of the characters aren’t recognizable as a language I’m familiar with, so I can’t even apply any kind of cipher to it. This is one hell of a code, but she’s able to write extremely fluently in it? 

“Ah, I see. What is this book actually about? I could barely tell because of all the religious tangents.” 

“The Void. Specifically its history, but there’s useful tidbits between everything that I haven’t seen much of elsewhere. I’ll have to correlate it.” 

“Why encode it, then?” I ask.

“Sealing knowledge is precious. If I die with this on me, I don’t want others to read it, especially not potential enemies.” 

That’s…a fair point. I don’t think it’s _that_ important — this book, after all, could be found in a public library, albeit a ninja one — but it’s good practice.

“Need any help?” I offer. She gives me a dubious look. 

“They’re…pretty hard to understand. I started with the easiest one.” She replies. I wince, getting her point.

_‘I appreciate the thought, but can you actually help?’_

“Maybe not, then.” I admit. I take a seat next to her and open my own book, continuing to read it. 

_What exactly is Etheria? My Academy background focused almost entirely on fundamental application, not theoretical, and that rarely came up._

The answer to that is a bit chilling, and takes rather more searching. Etheria is the manifestation of one’s soul — so, in other words, to allow someone to use your qi, you have to give up a bit of your soul…?

_Hm, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’d better cross-reference those sources._

It takes me the better part of four hours of intense study before I’m satisfied with the conclusions I’ve reached, dozens of books stacked in front of me. 

Etheria, as far as anyone can agree, is the _manifestation of the soul_ . When you run out of it, you die. There’s little agreement on what the _soul_ itself is, only that it is critical to who you are as a person. 

So, revisiting the concept of Etheria, to put it simply, one should just look at _Psychia_. 

How does a energy construct have personality and intelligence? The answer is as a result of the spiritual portion of energy, or, more importantly, _what it is._ Scholars generally agree that _Psychia_ is a _transcription of your imagination and expectation._ Your _intent_ , in other words. By focusing on what you want to occur, you give it shape. This concept matches our understanding of seals, and how the writer’s expectation gives the seal power.

So, if E _theria_ is your soul, Psychia is closer to a copy of it. That’s a very broad and generalized definition, bordering on outright inaccurate, but close enough for our purposes. This is why Potentia and Psychia come back over time, but Etheria doesn’t. You have a finite amount of Etheria.

I rub my eyes, exhausted from the constant reading and thinking I’ve been doing. 

“Here, Yuki.” Setsuna’s voice says gently. I peer up at her…and, more importantly, the water bottle and small boxed lunch she holds in her hands. 

“Thank you, Setsuna.” I reply, deciding to take a break. Gingerly, I clear a spot for my food amongst the piles of books. She shakes her head.

“You’re doing all of this for me, aren’t you? It’s the least I can do.” 

I start, shocked, even as my mind begins whirling—

“Ah, you peeked when I went to check my sources, didn’t you?” 

She flushes. “Yes. I felt bad, but…I was really curious…” 

I shrug. “You would’ve found out eventually. It’s not like I was planning on keeping it a secret forever.” 

“Ah.” She looks down. “I’ll be glad to help you, if you want.” 

I nod. “I need to think about everything I’ve learned, but once I figure out where to go from here…absolutely. But I need a break first.” 

That being said, I hungrily dig into my meal. It’s a pretty simple setup — rice and chicken, mostly — but it tastes delicious in my current state. The water, too, is especially refreshing. The simple chance to relax is incredibly valuable, and I’ve finished with the food soon enough.

“How have your own studies gone?” I ask as I collect the trash, being sure I haven’t spilled anything.

“Productive.” Setsuna replies cheerfully. “Given how hard it is to find and decipher useful _old lore_ …I’ve only filled a page of notes, but that’s a month’s work, usually. This was my sixth session at the library for this particular set, so I’m happy I’m done.”

_Legends…? She’s investigating legends…?_

“For what purpose?” I ask.

“Theoretical understanding, mostly.” She says, shrugging. “I’m not too sure. It could be really useful later on, but it depends on what else I learn.”

_That’s fairly abstract, but it seems like the truth. After all, she has no problem putting in a lot of effort for the slightest goal, no matter how far out of reach._

_Huh, speaking of out of reach…_

“Ah, I see. Are you familiar with Hikaru Kozakura?” 

“The Goddess of Mercy?” Setsuna asks, a little surprised. “She’s a top-tier ninja, healer, and researcher that specializes in medicine, chemistry, poison, and qi theory. What about her?” 

“Guess who offered me an apprenticeship?” I ask. Her jaw drops.

“Y-You’re joking…? No…you’re definitely serious. How?” 

I explain the story of what happened to her. She gives me a rueful smile.

“That’s…that’s incredible.” She stares at the ceiling contemplatively. “So…Sayaka also knows, then…about my condition…” 

“Yes. But…I think we can trust her. Even if you can’t trust her personality, which I’d understand, given your impression of her — you should be able to trust her honor.” 

_“Honor?”_ Setsuna asks, a strange look on her face.

“I’ve never known her to fail to carry through on a promise she’s made before.” I reply. I’ve been a decently close acquaintance with the girl for six years now, after all. While we’re not exactly friends, I do have a basic understanding of her life just from being in her vicinity, and I know how people generally think of her.

“Hm…okay. I’ll take your word for it…” She sighs. “I can’t be mad at you, given as how…” She gestures to the books in front of us. 

_You’re doing all of this for me._

_Well, I wouldn’t go so far to say that, Setsuna. Friendship aside, the things I’m learning about are interesting in their own right, and could be useful later on. Not to mention the actual apprenticeship, and the possibility that I can show up having completed a major theoretical exercise on my own._

It would probably be better if I didn’t vocalize that, though. So instead I just nod.

We get back to work. I begin investigating a point that’s come up often enough, but needs to be looked into more thoroughly.

_Qi is keyed to the user with Etheria. To allow someone else to use your qi, you have to surrender a certain portion of Etheria to them._

However, I can think of an immediate counterexample — _medical techniques._ To my understanding, those are the direct infusion of your qi into someone else’s body. There are two main categories: _direct healing_ and _indirect healing._

Direct healing is when the medic heals the injuries themselves, while indirect healing is when the medic encourages the patient’s own qi to work to heal themselves at an accelerated factor.

_But how?_

And it’s researching this point that I learn the truth of medical techniques, and why being a medic requires so much control.

 _Indirect_ healing is the direct usage of Etheria to heal someone. With that, all you need is intent, and the knowledge of how to heal someone. But it’s terribly inefficient — obviously, you would lose that Etheria for good. It’s also more potent, though, a more ‘pure’ method than _direct_ healing, which is by far the most common method. 

However, it is also the method that requires dramatically more skill. Even an untrained ninja could perform indirect healing with sufficient willpower and qi control, but…the average time of training before a medic can begin working with live humans with direct healing?

_Four years._

_Average, hm…? How about the_ median _…?_ I have to find a different source entirely for that, but…

_Aha. The median time for medic training prior to direct healing is two years._

It seems like the majority of people don’t take extremely long to hit this point, but, there’s a good amount of people who take _much_ longer. If I had to guess, the people on the left side of the scale have very good qi control, while those on the right do not. 

I smile in satisfaction. If there’s a talent I have, it would definitely be _qi control._ Although my elemental control still requires a good deal of work, outright control is something I’ve forced to get good at as a result of both learning to hide and manipulate my Ice aberration. 

_I wonder how fast could I hit that basic competency level? My own powers are already partially regenerative in nature. Is there a chance that I can study my own abilities to learn faster?_

I wind up checking out over a dozen books, in the end, ranging from qi theory to medicine and anatomy. Setsuna rents a few out herself, although they aren’t on the lore she was studying in the library. 

As if in agreement, once we get home, we put the books aside. There’s been too much reading for today, and I can tell that she’s feeling antsy. After all, I feel the exact same way. So instead of sitting around, I lead her towards the storage room…

…then towards the hatch in the corner…

…and down into the basement, which is really just a single room.

I press my hand onto the lamp, filling it with a bit of my qi and letting it glow. There’s one in each corner, allowing for sufficient lighting.

“What’s this for?” Setsuna asks curiously.

This basement isn’t part of the housing plan. I created it myself, and dug it out myself — using reinforcement, mostly. It took quite a while, but the result was worth it. 

“It’s for me to practice my Ice aberration out of sight. There’s also suppression and soundproofing seals coating all the walls to ensure there isn’t any leakage.”

_One might think those are hard to get, but…they’re really not, given how sensitive many ninja are to sudden changes in qi around them. No one wants to be disturbed by someone’s late-night practice. So they create a barrier that absorbs any ambient qi or sound going through it, when activated._

“Oh, I see. Why did you bring me here?” She asks.

“To spar, of course. What kind of weapon do you use?” I reply. 

“ _Weapon?_ A sword, when I do…”

I shift my affinity to Ice, concentrating.

_Set yourself into a form of my choosing. Ice, to give it color. Condense the energy into the physical plane. And…materialize._

A sharp screech briefly cuts through the air as I materialize a blade of gleaming ice in my hand. Without further ado, I toss it to her and concentrate once more, bringing a second sword into existence.

She catches it easily, looking surprised. 

“A sword fight?” She asks.

“Yep. Please don’t worry about attacking with full force — you can’t hurt me with my element.” I reply. 

“…You’re not the one I’m worried about.” She mumbles. “It’s been a while since I’ve used a sword…”

“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t hurt you either. This is _my_ element. It does only what I want it to.” I say confidently. It isn’t like I’m a Fire or Lightning user, after all. Ice is all about control. If I truly desire not to harm her, I won’t. It’s as simple as that. My will over my manifested element will prevent the Ice from harming her. That kind of thing isn’t something a normal User can do — only an Aberration can do something like that.

She nods. “I…I trust you.”

I take a stance. “Ready, then?”

The events of a few days ago have made it clear to me just how much work I need to do. If washed-out scum like that man could outclass me that easily…and if I’m going to become Hikaru’s apprentice, I’m going to need to be much, much better than this.

“Ready.” She says, firming up her own grip and settling into place with a determined glare.

“Go!” I shout, lunging forward in a straightforward, but very fast slash. She parries it, a little off-guard by how rapidly the attack comes out, but I don’t relent — in the next ten strikes, I’ve disarmed her, knocked her to the ground, and mimicked a finishing blow, cutting across her throat. However, when the blade would have impacted her skin, it bursts apart into snow.

I regrow my sword from the hilt and hold my free hand out to her, pulling her up.

“Again.” Setsuna says determinedly. 

This time, more prepared, she lasts for at least twice as long, but I still win decisively.

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

After perhaps the tenth consecutive victory, I pause. “Are you sure…?” 

She nods eagerly. 

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Again.” 

I have to give it to her…she’s really determined. 

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

She is lasting a good deal longer than her starting point. This must be what they call ‘teaching via application’. Even so, I’m rather dubious of the efficiency of all of this…

“Alright, Yuki.” She cracks her neck after her latest defeat, looking tired but resolved. “Are _you_ ready?”

I narrow my eyes. There’s something off about this. 

“That’s a rather mischievous smile you’re sporting there.” I say. Her eyes sparkle. 

“Oh…it’s just a little surprise I’ve been saving up.” She takes a one-handed stance. 

_Now that’s definitely suspicious. Up until this point, she’s been using two hands. And her stance is more sure — like she’s more used to holding the blade? That would be an expected result of our sparring, if the change wasn’t so dramatic. It’s almost as if…_

“I’m ready.” I reply. She grins.

“Go!” 

This time, she takes _me_ off guard, moving far faster than she was previously as she brings her sword down in a powerful cut. I parry it and regain my balance, trading rapid strikes with her. 

She’s _definitely_ gotten faster and stronger! Ignoring her sudden change from a two-handed style to a one-handed style alone…what is this?!

It’s blatantly obvious when I take the time to notice it — solid, intricate black lines covering her arms and legs. 

_Seals! She has activated seals on her arms and legs!_

She eventually forces me into a sword-lock, determined eyes meeting mine.

“What…what the hell, Setsuna? What are those…!?” I ask. “I’ve never seen anything like those!”

“Of course you haven’t.” She dismisses easily. “They aren’t even complicated, but if you aren’t dedicated to learning about seals, you don’t know anything about them. They work on a similar system to my qi absorption array.” 

I force her away with a grunt of exertion, swiping at her as she stumbles. “Storing the physical element of qi, releasing it into your body on activation?” It’s the simplest explanation I can think of that makes sense.

“Yep!” She slashes at my head. “My body can’t hold very much qi anyways, and I’m absorbing way more ambient qi than I can store. So I’ve begun putting some of the excess away into seals to use to empower myself!” 

“Makes sense.” I grunt. “What about the spiritual component?” 

“Empowering techniques.” 

I frown. “Walk me through that bit of qi theory later. I missed that.”

“Sure. It’s at the end of ‘A Treatise on the Nature of Qi’, but I guess you haven’t finished it.” She goes for a risky lunge, which I deftly sidestep.

_The book by Hikaru Kozakura…? Hm…_

I follow through on her overextension, a rapid combination neatly disarming her of her sword. My Ice blade clips the side of her head, disappearing into snowflakes. 

She looks satisfied with her defeat. “Closing the gap in physical ability definitely helped a lot. Now…it’s just a skill thing.”

I nod. She was definitely much better in her empowered state, and, excluding her little overextension, isn’t half-bad at this at all.

“How long can you keep that up?” I ask. She shrugs. 

“An hour? Two? I haven’t tested it too much, but I can definitely run it for a long time. It isn’t a lot of qi — like I said, I’m limited by what my body can safely use, which…isn’t even enough for most techniques, to be honest.”

“Ah, I see. You were going to explain how it worked?” 

“Oh, yeah. So if you split the components of qi into physical and spiritual — obviously, ignoring Etheria — you’ll find that the _physical arts_ require more of the former and the _ninja arts_ rely more on the latter. You still need both — you can’t have a technique without Potentia to bring it into form, and it won’t be anything more than raw power without Psychia. But if I can store and use enough of both, I might be able to use low-level ninja arts.” She explains.

“Seems intuitive enough. But won’t you be unbalanced if you start moving way faster?” 

“Ah, yeah. There’s a hard cap to just how much extra power I can put into myself without losing all of my skill and reflexes, but even so — being a little bit faster and stronger isn’t a bad thing. And if I can utilize this consistently…”

_Then it’s a free power boost. Huh._

“Fair enough.” I agree. 

“Ready for round two?” She invites.

I smirk, growing my blade back once more. “You mean…round thirty-two?” 

She glares.

We continue practicing swordsmanship and, later, hand-to-hand combat, deep into the night. She still can’t beat me, even with her seals, but it’s a lot closer than I’d anticipated. 

In the end, I’m satisfied with our progress, and we sleep once more. 

  
  



	7. (1.2.3) Guardian, Part 3

#  **1.2.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Guardian, Part 3**

The second day is the hardest. This is something that rings true for a lot of things; dieting, exercise, and, apparently, waking up with a girl in your bed.

“Take your hand off my ass, Setsuna.” I say flatly, somewhat betrayed by the warming of my cheeks.

“Hmwha—“ She groans sleepily. Rolling my eyes, I move her arm myself. 

“You’re supposed to be a ninja, aren’t you? How come you’re having such a hard time waking up today?” I ask, poking her in the side.

“Ah, what — I didn’t have the — stooop! — the same training as you for it!” 

_ Oh, that’s right. That’s an Academy-trained skill. For a full month in our fourth and fifth year each, we had to camp over, and they would force you to wake up at exact times and make you do things. Some times, we only got to sleep for two hours or less, and we had to perform complicated tasks running on fumes. But it trained our bodies to get by on little sleep and wake up immediately. Later on in the month, we had to wake up  _ on our own,  _ or get punished for it. _

It was brutal, but extremely effective. I hear we’ll be doing something similar in our upcoming years to be sure that we haven’t lost that ability.

“Well, you’d better learn, or you’re going to get absolutely stomped on later when they retest for it.” I reply dryly. 

“Ugh.” She groans. “I’m awake, I’m awake…”

“I’ll shower first while you wake up.” I say, patting her on the head before I make my way to the bathroom.

I pull off my clothes and head into the back of the shower. Closing my eyes and concentrating for a full minute, I shift my affinity to Water. This allows me to sink some of my qi into the water tank and produce water out of my energy. It’s not a necessary step — the shower works regardless of you filling the tank manually — but it saves money on water usage, which is a pleasant perk. Besides that, it’s not half-bad training either.

There’s a lot of useful  _ qi machines  _ like this, including the lamp — that one, though, utilizes neutral qi and releases it as light, and doesn’t require any particular affinity. The stove can absorb fire-natured qi, etc…etc…

_ The innovations people have come up with are quite incredible…though, most of these can actually be attributed to one person. I’m sure Setsuna knows the name, since, after all…just about all of these are based on  _ seals.

_ It’s something Setsuna could do, should she choose to retire from the ninja life.  _

…

She insists that I help teach her how to cook, and per my earlier agreement with her to teach her, I do. Cooking isn’t complicated, especially for ninja with particularly precise control over their own movements, and it makes prep time short. 

“Huh.” She mutters, twirling the kitchen knife around in her hands, “This isn’t nearly as hard as I thought it was. It’s just…following the recipe.” 

“What did you think it was? Magic?” I ask dryly. “And stop playing with the knife. I don’t want blood in the soup.”

She pouts as she cuts up a carrot, the implement nearly a blur with how fast she slices. The pieces join the rest of the veggies she’s cut, and I toss them into the boiling broth. The soup is done shortly after, and I scoop it into ceramic bowls for us to eat.

“It’s delicious!” Setsuna exclaims, seemingly delighted. 

“It’s just vegetable soup.” I reply, taking a sip of my own. 

We’ve made enough for at least a few additional servings, so I decide to put the rest of the food into the  _ freezer _ for warm-up later. 

Setsuna stares at the device speculatively, seeming to be lost in thought.

“If you don’t hurry up, we’ll be late for classes.” I say, slinging my backpack over one shoulder as I grab my pills with the other hand and swallow them. She nods, giving it one last lingering look before heading out with me, her own medication taken as well.

…

“You should already have a solid theoretical grasp on the primary four elements. Today, we’ll explore something called  _ aspect shifting _ , which is relevant for those of you who have two different affinities, or who are interested in developing such.” 

The teacher flares her qi aura. It’s clearly identifiable as Fire — although it isn’t  _ visible _ , anyone with any awareness of qi at all can make an educated guess based on the sense of  _ heat _ that she radiates. 

“Right now, my set affinity is Fire. From your first  _ Awakening _ , you’ll have been set in this type ever since you’ve unlocked it. What that is varies per person. However, you aren’t limited to just one affinity. Through  _ aspect shifting _ , you will be able to change to other affinities you’ve Awakened. I am personally capable of three different affinities; Fire, Water, and Wind. Fire is my natural type, and will therefore always be the one that comes easiest to me, as well as being the one that influences my personality most.”

“Being able to aspect shift rapidly is important for those who want to proficiently wield multiple elements. I’ve worked on it fairly hard, and I’ve managed to knock it down to two seconds.” 

The feel of her aura had been steadily changing this time, going from warmth to  _ coolness _ . 

“This is Water.” 

After another two seconds, the feeling we get from her changes from coolness to  _ airiness.  _

“This is Wind. Note that you wouldn’t be able to tell nearly as easily if I kept my qi aura at its normal level.”

The feeling weighing on us instantly diminishes.

“And it would be even harder if I actively tried to hide my aura.”

The feeling fades away nearly entirely, to the point of being indistinguishable. You can still just barely tell that she’s a User, but you don’t know  _ what  _ her nature is.

“Flaring your aura is useful when you need to intimidate someone that you are stronger than, for example, not to mention its uses inside of combat. But you should also consider what information you are giving away when you choose to do so…such as, Yuki?”

I hesitate, wondering if I’m reading too much into the question. “Your affinity and your overall strength. Making people think that you are weaker than you seem can be a good strategy; namely, if someone who thinks you’re weak tries to intimidate you, you can throw them off guard by revealing your actual strength.” 

“Correct.” She says approvingly. “So be sure that you have all the information you need before trying to fight someone. You never know what they’re hiding. Incidentally, Yuki, I called on you for a different reason entirely. You seem to be the only one in this class, and, indeed, the entire South Academy, with a dual affinity.”

_ I would have absolutely preferred she not reveal that to the entire class, but yes. That is correct.  _

“Could you please demonstrate aspect shifting to the class?” It’s a politely phrased question, but there’s more than a little steel in her tone. 

“Yes, ma’am.” I say, standing up and walking towards the front of the class.

“Now, I’m not quite as good with this as our instructor—“ This manages to elicit a few smiles and smirks, “—but I am capable of the Water and Wind affinity. Actually, I just Awakened my Water affinity this year.” 

As I talk, I focus on my qi, shoving every remnant of Ice deep, deep within me. Everyone will be looking extra closely, including my teacher. I can’t let anything show, or I’ll be killed for sure. 

“It’s a bit imprecise to say that I have a dual affinity, as it implies that I can use Wind and Water equally. That isn’t correct — Wind is without a doubt my primary affinity, and the one that comes more easily to me. Water is the affinity I awakened second, and takes a lot more work.”  _ Better to understate my abilities, I think. Although I’m definitely not lying. _

In front of me, the class stares with visible interest — Sayaka, particularly, is trying to gauge my actual level of strength. Setsuna looks borderline disinterested — she, on the other hand, already has a very good idea of how strong I am, having been exposed to my normal, unfiltered aura.

“My aspect shift takes two minutes, so please excuse me for the delay.” 

_ That’s a lie. It takes just one, but I don’t want them to know that. _

So I intentionally stall my affinity shift, pretending like I’m concentrating hard on it.

_ Okay, that part’s not entirely a lie — I can’t change without thinking, or it’d be close to instant.  _

Aspect shifting is fascinating — it involves changing ALL of your nature to the different type. Specifically, one has to focus on the psychia, which gives your techniques ‘color’, for lack of a better word. 

Anything less than perfection will not suffice. Every single strand of qi must be changed. It’s hard to describe the exact process, and would describe words that simply have no meaning without having  _ experienced  _ and  _ manipulated  _ qi. 

Needless to say, it’s very complicated, and requires a lot of precision. Eventually, one can get good enough to aspect shift without sitting still and closing their eyes and focusing — that’s step one to mastery. 

Once my internal clock has ticked past the two minute mark…I allow my aspect shift to complete, hunting those last bits of Wind-flavored qi I’ve been ignoring.

“And I’m done.” I say. With a bit of focus, I call Water-natured qi to my hand and create an orb of water in my palm. The class politely claps.

“Thank you, Yuki, for that demonstration — you may take your seat. Take three extra points — one for the detailed explanations, one for the performance, and one for the discretion and intelligence to  _ not _ flash your qi aura.”

Murmurs flare up around me. This instructor  _ never  _ gives extra credit, making her  _ three _ points extremely notable. I mentally sigh as I reclaim my seat. Sayaka, catching my eye from across the classroom, gives me what looks like an encouraging smile. I grimace in return, electing a small smirk from her. 

_ Damn you, Sayaka. You probably know what I’m dreading, and happy to have passed that particular curse on. Take it back!  _

I glance at Setsuna. She blinks at me.

Ruefully, I roll my eyes. She definitely knows what I’m thinking, too.

_ Damn it…this is so troublesome… _

…

Setsuna and I stay for a bit after class, go over some of our notes, and soon enough we pack up and make our way out.

_ I was right. Things  _ would _ change, once I unveiled myself as the top student of the class. It’s pretty silly; you can’t even  _ be  _ that strong as a sixth-year. And there’s four other classes! People just keep talking about me! And I hate it! Let me sink back to relative mediocrity!  _

Thankfully, people aren’t annoying to my face, but…I can hear them, and see them, and can tell the way they treat me is just a little bit different.

_ Is this how Hikaru felt? It’s really irritating! No wonder she told us to be informal! _

It’s then and there that I vow to be as informal as possible to everyone I can get away with that with. 

A different problem’s arisen, though, one that I hadn’t expected. 

“So I hear you’re the top student of Class Five.” A voice says from behind us. It doesn’t take me by surprise — their ability to be stealthy is lower than my ability to perceive my surroundings…although, granted, they probably weren’t trying to be stealthy. 

And their intent is oh-so-very clear. Even if the voice wasn’t growling, the malicious intent I can feel leaking from them says everything I need to know.

_ Four of them…and their qi auras are exposed. Amateurs. Fire, Fire…Water, Wind. Alright, so the best element to suit this situation is going to be… _

I begin shifting my aspect to Water, turning around in the same motion.

“You’re joking.” I say flatly. Setsuna, I notice, doesn’t turn with me, but her back’s stiffened up.

_ Is she scared? Of  _ them?  _ Doubtful. What’s she planning?  _

“I’m the top student in Class Four.” The same voice says. I barely register his features — dark haired, brown-eyed — his qi aura isn’t even comparable to Sayaka’s. Pitiful. 

“I don’t care.” 

“You will.” He snarls. 

_ Damn it, I should have let her be the top student and just taken another draw. This is going to be so annoying to handle, now, and in the future. I wonder, can I cut this off right now? What’s the source of this? Does it end with the one in front of me, or is someone fanning the flames?  _

“No, I don’t think I will.” I reply blandly. 

“And you, girl…you’re the transfer, aren’t you? You’re the reason why Chikako got cut from class!” 

I chuckle. “Oh. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” I scan their eyes, finding one who looks particularly passionate. “You. Did you have a little crush on her, perhaps?” 

“Shut the fuck up.” He pulls out a dagger. As if on cue, the boys behind him begin calling on their own qi or drawing their own weapons. This seems to finally pull Setsuna’s interest, as she turns around holding a knife of her own.

My eyes widen.

_ A knife…with a dozen explosive tags hanging off of it. _

“Holy shit, you’re fucking crazy!” One of the boys shout, pointing at it — apparently he recognizes the tags, too. She ignores him, silently moving to my side.

“Uh, hey, you know we’re in a hallway, right?” I ask. 

She doesn’t even glance at me. “You’ll survive. I don’t care about the rest of them.” 

Well, this sure is an interesting standoff. Setsuna’s foot scrapes against the ground, catching my notice — and the  _ way  _ she scrapes it, with the layout of the hallway…

My aspect shift completes. 

I lightly tap my foot in confirmation, and she hurls the knife at the lead boy.

They immediately jump away, diving into different classrooms or outright running from it — and Setsuna and I dash into the nearest classroom. 

_ No explosion? A bluff, then. A good one. _

“Window!” She shouts, and I nod, calling a stream of water to my hands. Without hesitation, I blow the window open with a jet of water, and Setsuna and I jump through it, relying on our qi auras to bat any wayward shards away.

“After them!” The lead boy’s voice shouts, and they come spilling out of the classrooms as well, leaping to the ground.

As they do, however, Setsuna whips out a hand filled with throwing needles and hurls them at the oncoming students. Three have the presence of mind to block, but one — the Water user, doesn’t, and multiple needles sink into his limbs, sending him to the ground shrieking in pain. 

A spike of qi alerts me to an oncoming attack — I turn around, calling raw water qi to my hand and  _ batting _ an oncoming fireball the size of a melon into the dirt in the direction it came from, where it bursts into flames. 

“Woah…!” The caster exclaims, apparently taken off guard by my deflection. Setsuna takes advantage of his momentary distraction, sinking a pair of projectiles into his knees. He goes down, wailing. 

A scythe of wind is fired towards Setsuna — not enough to kill her, but definitely enough to  _ scar _ . I shove her out of the way of the attack as I materialize a hasty wall of water with raw qi, managing to block the majority of the force. What’s left rushes over me fairly harmlessly, doing little more than splashing my clothes.

_ Alright, and that’s the last of my patience. _

I sprint towards him as fast as I can, reinforcing my body as I do so. Although he manages a hasty guard, he’s off-balance from the speed of my approach, and I nimbly slip under his guard and drive a low kick directly into his knee, shattering the joint. He screams in agony, but not for long — my knee meets his face as he falls and he instantly goes silent with a choked sound, the distinct sound of a nose shattering ringing out. 

Emotionlessly, I pick him up and  _ bodily hurl him  _ towards the leader, who had hesitated upon seeing what Setsuna and I had done to his group. 

Caught off guard, he’s barely able to catch him, and they both tumble to the ground. I rush over, bodily kick the wounded one away, and land a solid reinforced stomp right into the leader’s face.

“Hrrk!” 

I don’t let up, targeting his stomach and face — once, twice, three times— 

He chokes, bones fracturing under my vicious assault. 

“These are the consequences of your  _ stupid  _ decisions. Have you learned your lesson? This is  _ what happens _ when you let stupid pride take control over your emotions. What kind of ninja are you? Pathetic.” I grab him by the throat and pull him up, forcing him to hang in my grasp before punching him in the stomach.

“Yuki!” Setsuna shouts, racing forward to hold me back. 

“No, Setsuna.” I say, voice hard. “I don’t think you understand. If I don’t give them enough motivation to stay away, there’s a good chance they’ll try to get back at me — perhaps by targeting  _ you _ . This needs to be the only time, even if I have to  _ kill _ them to get them to understand.” I shake the boy in my hands, before realizing that he’s fallen unconscious.

“That’s enough.” Another voice says with authority, and I turn around, guard raised.

Oh. It’s one of the ninja patrolling the wall. He looks at the scene, then at Setsuna and I. He shakes his head. 

“You children are something else, I’ve got to say.” 

_ He saw the whole thing?  _

“Why didn’t you step in sooner?” She asks.

“Same reason I’m not kicking your asses right now.” He says, crossing his arms. Well…if he’s seen the whole thing, and chose not to step in…

“You thought they needed to be taught a lesson too?” I guess. He smirks.

“Yeah, I sometimes forget how young you kids are. Listen up. That would be a good motivation if I gave a damn about your well-being. I don’t. The purpose of the Academy is to produce good, well-rounded ninja. If these four can intimidate someone into stepping down or bowing in fear,  _ then that person isn’t a good ninja.  _ We’ve known about their little thing for quite a while now. But almost no one stood up against them.”

_ Huh. Alright. That’s…fair enough.  _

Hm, did  _ Sayaka  _ try fighting them? Did she…well, he didn’t say anything about her winning. Something to ask her about, maybe? I know where both she and Kaede live — we’ve had more than our share of projects — so that might be worthwhile to look into…

“I do have a question — Do they have any ninja family I should worry about? Things along those lines?” I ask.

“Ah, worried about retribution? Well, I’d be surprised if these four tried anything after the beatdown you just gave them. If they start getting family involved, well, they’ll be under the full weight of the law.” He smirks. 

Given how I met Setsuna, I’m not entirely sure that’ll suffice, but it’s better than nothing, at least. 

“Oh, is that you, Yuki?” A heavier presence altogether makes itself known behind us, one that contains enough intensity behind it to make my hair stand on end. 

My throat goes dry as I turn around, coming face-to-face with someone I hadn’t expected to run into twice. 

“Koza—“ She glares. “H-Hikaru.” I reply. The guard next to me turns to look at me incredulously.

“I’d expected some light bruises and scratches when the call for a medic at the Academy went out, not…this.” She says, looking over the battered boy on the ground before glancing at the injuries of the other three. 

“Yeah, I may have gone a little overboard.” I admit. “But it was deterrence, not revenge.” 

“Hm, is that so…?” She channels a bit of light pink qi to her fingertips and prods the boy in front of me. His injuries instantly begin knitting themselves together, the bruises fading away and his broken jaw and nose reforming.

_ So this is the power of the Regeneration aberration? Incredible. She doesn’t even have to do anything — just feeding him a bit of her qi is all she needs. What an insane, unreasonable power.  _

“Could you bring the other ones here, too?” She asks me. Nodding, I grab the nearest one and start dragging him over. The Fire User isn’t quite able to make it to his feet, what with needles in his knees, so Setsuna is forced to help him up, yanking them out as she does so.

“I’m surprised you came out here.” I say, as I unload the patient next to her. 

“Oh, I was just passing by. As you know, the library isn’t very far away from here, and I had just dropped off a stack of books. It just so happened that I was the most qualified medic nearby, since the school medics had taken off with classes ending. Why were you here so late after class?” As she speaks, she pulls out needles with perfect precision and pokes with a glowing finger, healing injuries easily.

Normally the school clears out near-instantly — teachers literally race to go home, and no one wants to linger here. So even five minutes after the end of classes is considered late. And we were there for an extra fifteen.

“Notes revision, then we got held up by these guys.” I admit. 

“Ah. Making power plays?” 

“How’d you know?” I ask, surprised.

“I was in the Academy too, once upon a time.” Hikaru says, chuckling. “I’m not that old.” 

_ Huh. This kind of thing is normal behavior? _

Setsuna escorts the fourth boy.

“Of course, no one could intimidate me into submission.” She says, humor in her face as the last boy’s injuries fix themselves in front of her. “I beat everyone who tried it up. Badly.” 

I raise an eyebrow. Though she called the injuries surprising, she didn’t even blink at them. What exactly is her ‘badly’?

“I see.” I say instead. She nods, standing up.

_ That power of hers is seriously incredible. Two fairly serious sets of injuries, and she healed them both with a bit of qi and a poke. No wonder she has so much free time, if she does that for all injuries. _

“Well, I’m done for now.” She says brightly. Motioning for me to lean closer, she whispers into my ear, so quietly I can barely make out the words:

“Hey, Yuki, that’s the girl, right? The psuedo-User?”

“Yes, why?” I ask, equally quiet.

“I’d like to take a look at her. Can you bring her over to my house in ten minutes?” 

“With her consent, sure.” 

Her eyes glitter with amusement. “Good boy.”

Quietly, she whispers her address to me. I nod in acknowledgement. 

“Anyways, I’ll leave it to you.” Hikaru says, stretching. She walks over to the guard who has kept supervision over us and mutters something quietly to him — he jumps away, looking mildly alarmed.

“See you two there!” She says cheerfully, waving. A second later, she’s gathered the requisite qi and makes a massive leap, right over the wall of the Academy. 

_ What the hell?! That’s a jump of literally hundreds of meters! The kind of force required to do that should have shattered the ground underneath her!  _

“What did she say to you?” I ask the guard curiously.

“She…said she was going to  _ eat _ you two, or something…” He says uncertainly.

_ Heh. I wasn’t the only one she was playing with, I see. _

“We’re free to go, right?” I say, indicating Setsuna and myself. “We have a dinner date, after all.”

The guard makes a face.

“Sure, whatever, kiddo. Check your mailbox in the morning, we might send you something…other than that, yeah, get out of here.” 

  
Not needing any further cue, I glance to Setsuna, who nods. Together, we make our way as fast as we can out of the Academy, and away from the scene of the crime. 


	8. (1.2.4) Guardian, Part 4

#  **1.2.4 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Guardian, Part 4**

“You don’t mind going?”

“No.” I lead Setsuna towards the address Hikaru’s told me. “I didn’t know you carried throwing needles.”

“They’re designed to do little amounts of precise damage. An appropriate level of force for a school setting.” She replies dryly. 

I roll my eyes, but keep moving forward. Soon enough, we’ve made it to the address. Hikaru’s beat us there — unsurprisingly enough — and lets us in, having been waiting on the porch.

“Come inside, Yuki and Setsuna.”

“Thanks.” 

This looks almost exactly the same as my house. It’s a little more decorated, certainly, but the layout is the same. 

“I could have upgraded.” Hikaru says, as if reading my thoughts. “I chose not to, though, since I rarely stay here.” 

“If not here, then where do you go?” I ask curiously. She laughs. 

“The hospital or the library, usually, and mostly the former. It’s good to have me on call there in case of an emergency — I even have a spare room dedicated to me. It’s a great deal.” She says happily as she heads to the kitchen with a teapot and three stacked cups, filling each of them.

“Any sugar?” She asks. Setsuna shakes her head, but I nod. She stirs our cups before handing them to us, and takes a deep sip of our own.

We follow suit. It’s rather good, all things considered. 

_She must really love what she does if she’s willing to sleep at the hospital. Although it sort of seems like most of what she actually winds up doing is poking people with her finger and instantly saving their lives._

“What did you invite us here for?” Setsuna asks curiously.

“You, dear.” Hikaru says.

The sealer closes her eyes, thinking. “Is this about my seal system?”

_Wow. Good intuition._

“Yes. I wanted to confirm some things, and also be sure that your little trick isn’t adversely affecting your ability to use qi in the future. Do you consent to a full-body, semi-invasive medical scan?

_Semi-invasive scan?_

Setsuna glances uncertainly at me. I shrug, indicating that I’m not willing to choose for her.

“I do.” 

Hikaru nods decisively. 

“Strip.” 

Without hesitation, Setsuna begins working off her clothes.

“Should…I be going…?” I ask.

“You stay.” Hikaru says sharply.

Soon enough, Setsuna’s fully unclothed. I feel bad about watching, but that being said, it’s also a firsthand look at healing, so I force myself to focus and watch. Hikaru runs a hand glowing with blue qi over her body, starting at her head and working down, spending a particularly long amount of time on her head, limbs, and heart. It takes a few minutes, but eventually she finishes her work. 

“There’s a bit of muscle strain in your limbs from pushing yourself too hard, but you’re otherwise fine.” Hikaru muses. Her free hand glows green as she runs it over the affected areas. 

“Thank you.” She says, stretching her arms as she dresses herself once more. 

“Well, I’m done here.” She turns to me. “After all, the paralytic should be kicking in at any second now.”

_It takes a second for me to recognize what she’s said._

“Para—you—!” I realize too late, what I should have realized a long time ago — I can’t move my limbs. 

_But I didn’t see her put anything in! Damn it! No, the sugar—!? But…she put a great deal into her own, too! She must have taken a counteragent beforehand! No, that doesn’t make sense, what if I had turned it down…?_

_She put the paralytic at the bottom of one of the cups and made sure it got to me._

“…What do you want?” Setsuna asks quietly, body stiff. 

“Not going to defend him?” Hikaru asks, curiously. There isn’t any malice on her face, like I’d expect—

Setsuna grimaces. “If…If I thought there was even the slightest chance of victory, I would.” 

That’s right. For all of our strength relative to our classmates, it isn’t even a tiny drop in the bucket to the skill, experience, power, and knowledge of someone like Hikaru Kozakura, a ninth-star ninja. Setsuna, who doesn’t have the ability to instantly destroy her with a high-power attack, couldn’t kill her or meaningfully disable her if Hikaru sat there and let her do whatever she pleased. Even I couldn’t.

“Well, I’m actually just going to confirm a suspicion of mine.” She turns to me. “Sorry, but I’m not going to ask your consent to perform a full-body, semi-invasive scan. Forgive me.” 

_What’s that all about?_

“Semi-invasive?” I finally ask, realizing I can still talk and breathe just fine. 

“A non-invasive scan is an external scan only. An invasive scan involves an internal exploration, often via surgery. Semi-invasive, the most common amongst ninja like us, is a deep reading of your qi as well, and usually involves full nudity. Don’t worry, though, I don’t need you naked for this.” With deft fingers, she works off my shirt and places her hand over my heart.

_Shit! She’s going to—_

Her hand flashes blue with qi. It takes only a few seconds for her to find what she’s looking for, despite my desperate attempts at hiding my aberration. 

“Yeah…that’s what I thought. I'm glad I got to you first...who knows what could have happened?" She glances at Setsuna, who's nervously tugging at the hem of her shirt. "Does she know?” 

“Yes.” I say, defeated. There’s no point in hiding it now.

“I see. So…You’re an Ice Aberrant.” She pulls away, tossing my shirt at me to cover me again.

“Are you going to kill me now?” 

“Eh? Why would I?” She asks, curiously. 

“The rules.” I reply. She snorts.

“Like I care. They can’t _make_ me follow them, anyways. And anyways, I’m not going to kill my future apprentice.” She says, smiling. Her fingers glow emerald once more, and she jabs me firmly in the stomach. 

With a start, I realize that I can suddenly move my limbs again. So I start by putting on my shirt again, still wary, but…well, being hostile in this situation would be beyond meaningless. It’s best to at least fake politeness. 

“How did you find out?” I ask, a little more hopeful now that instant death doesn’t _appear_ to be in my near future.

“Most of my job involves scanning people to figure out what’s wrong with them. Any elite medic should be able to identify that something’s unnatural about you. You hide it _very_ well, though. Even I wasn’t too sure about you with what little time we had at the library, and had to double check. ”

_I’ve never gone to the hospital, so there’s that._

“Is there anything I can do about that?” 

“Hm…Train your Wind affinity more. That’s what I thought your affinity was at first, but…even though your secondary Water affinity hides it well, it was still a little too obvious to ignore.” She says.

An idea comes to mind. “What if I _awaken_ all four elements?” I ask. 

Her eyes sparkle with interest. “Fire and Earth, both counter-elements…it would be hard, but if you did…I don’t believe there would be anyone who could identify your full affinity, even _with_ a full scan, unless you were totally unconscious. We can test that when you manage that, though. It’ll…to be honest, I don’t expect you to be able to manage that until our apprenticeship, so…”

_Challenge accepted._

She nods, satisfied. “I did want to know something, though — how good are you with your Ice affinity right now?” She asks.

I bite my lip. “It’s hard to say. My Ice affinity gives me a lot of versatility, as well as more than a few innate abilities. First of all, I have a fairly high resistance to cold and heat. I’m immune to my own element, and have an overall stronger body than typical. Additionally, I have a regeneration factor that works fairly rapidly, although of course not nearly to the level that yours does.” 

“May I see?” 

I flip a knife out of my holster and slash across my other arm, turning the wound towards her. She watches, intrigued, as the wound begins knitting itself together. Overall, it probably takes around ten seconds or so, far, far faster than a normal person ought to heal, even with qi. 

“Fascinating. Perhaps because of the innate properties of Water…no, then Water Users would be able to…but healing…anyways, the innate properties alone of this aberration are fascinating. How much qi did that consume?”

I shrug. “I’m not sure if it’s related to my aberration or if it’s just natural talent, but I also have a particularly high qi reserve. That bit there…didn’t even register as one percent.” 

She lifts a blue-glowing hand to my heart again, concentrating. 

“Hm…this _is_ rather unusually high. But it’s not so high as to be unreasonable — you’re perhaps in the ninetieth percentile of people your age. No, what really gives you that impression of a massive reservoir is _efficiency._ ” 

“Efficiency?” 

“Yes. Your control over your qi, even at an innate level, is quite exceptional if your ability to hide it and your dual — well, _triple_ affinity is of any indication. You must have had to spend a lot of time practicing to control it, right?”

I nod. 

“Can you regrow limbs?” She asks. I contemplate the question seriously.

“I’ve…never tried. And don’t really want to. I suspect that I _could_ , though.” 

“I see, I see…oh, and your active abilities?” 

“I don’t suppose you have qi suppression seals around your house?” I ask. “I don’t really want to unintentionally alert someone when I make the switch.” 

“I do. And I can guarantee they’ll be able to hold your excess in — I’ll often come here to try my own experiments, after all.” 

I nod. “Well, here goes.” 

Aspect shifting to Ice takes half a second, at best. It’s just returning to a natural state.

“That was fast.” 

“Indeed. This is my natural aberration, after all.”

It’s important to differentiate aberrations from affinities in a major key way — unlike the four basic affinities, aberrations are _completely natural_ and require no work to shift to, simply because _they are the default state for us._ It’s sort of like like…the difference between asking a Fire User to cast a fireball versus a Water user. For the Fire User, creating a fireball comes easily to them, because it is the state they are in, whereas the Water User must aspect shift to Fire first. 

There’s always a little bit of Ice in me. It’s a natural gift, and a natural curse. 

“Fair enough.” Hikaru admits. “Something you may not have noticed due to your abnormal understanding of temperature — the air around you has turned notably colder.” 

“Hm…that _is_ interesting. I wonder if I could change that to be useful in battle…” I wonder, thinking about the possibilities. 

“Oh, you can do more than just that.” She says, intrigued. “I do believe that the coldness is emanating from your qi aura, which heavily implies you may be able to freeze water by touching it if you have an intense enough aura, as well as doing additional damage through physical contact.” 

“That would make it _extremely_ obvious that my affinity is Ice.” I say dryly.

“Then just get strong enough to where, by the time you reveal your aberration, you’re too useful to be touchable.” Hikaru says, smirking slightly.

_That’s…_

“It’s what I did, although my path was much easier. I didn’t wish to be a ninja — I preferred to be a researcher and healer. But you can’t live in these districts if you’re _not_ a ninja. So I became such a useful healer that they couldn’t _afford_ to send me out if I didn’t want to be a ninja. There are hundreds of examples of this kind of thing all throughout history.” Hikaru says, eyes glittering. “And you, I think, hold the potential to be a ninth-star ninja, _easily_ , within a decade of work, or even less. _If_ you survive. And, at that point, they won’t want to get rid of you. Even as a seventh or eighth-star, you’d still be pretty valuable, as long…” 

“As long as I don’t show signs of insanity, right?” I ask. She nods.

“We’d better talk about that, shouldn’t we?” She puts her hands on her hips. “To be honest, you don’t strike me as a sociopath. Not the _most_ emotionally stable, but…you have a long way to go before you hit that point.”

I shrug. “There is something I’ve noticed, though, that _is_ alarming.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I’m about ninety percent confident that I suffer from a level of emotional detachment that would be considered psychologically abnormal. The most clear example of this is…well, I guess I can tell you anything now. A few days ago, I killed another man in self defense.” 

Setsuna glances at me, masking surprise. If Hikaru notices the lie, she doesn’t comment. “And you haven’t felt any remorse about it?”

“Correct. It’s just a fact of life that I haven’t been able to feel anything about.”

“Alright…” She muses. “And the ‘progress against it’?”

“Recently, a certain someone has been able to elicit emotional responses that I rarely feel — embarrassment, mostly, but a little bit of…affection, I guess.” Setsuna flushes slightly as Hikaru glances at her. “These responses are fairly _regular_. As a result, the last few days have been a lot more memorable and…interesting…than most of my entire life.” 

“That’s extremely promising.” The medic says. “Mind if I run another, deeper scan on you? I have something I want to check out.” 

“Ah, sure.” There’s nothing else I can give away, so if she has an idea about my emotional issues…

“You’re going to have to take off your shirt.” She says clinically.

The scan takes much longer this time, closer to ten minutes. I close my eyes and remain still, ignoring the mildly warm sensation of her qi probing at my heart.

“I see.” She eventually mutters. “You can put your shirt back on.”

I do so.

“Alright…I’m not too sure how to describe what I’m detecting. But…around your _Spiritual Core_ , there’s this sort of…Veil…? A kind of cover around it. It’s…” She sighs. “How much of my literature have you read?” 

“Ah…most of _A Treatise on the Nature of Qi_ , as well as _Introduction to Manifested Aberrations._ I’ve picked up _Introduction to Direct Healing_ as well, but haven’t started it.” 

She cracks a smile. “One of my more advanced books hypothesizes on the nature of the Spiritual Core. I strongly believe that it is where most of the personality is stored, and that it interacts with the brain in some manner. I won’t get into the details, but…needless to say, this Veil may be a factor in your emotional suppression, if not _the_ reason outright.”

I blink. The overwhelming majority of anatomy agrees that the brain is the center of emotion and personality, and it’s a law we’ve held onto for at _least_ a few centuries. Hikaru’s idea is…an unusual one, to say the least.

“To be honest, if anyone else had written that book, it probably would have been thrown out.” She frowns, dissatisfied. “But I want to prove myself right, at least. Or find definitive evidence that I’m wrong. I don’t like not knowing. You have no idea how much I’m resisting the idea of kidnapping you, keeping you in my basement, and running experiments all day on you.” 

“That’s…rather honest of you.” I reply dryly. If that had been her chosen course of action, she’d have already _done_ it. 

She shrugs. “I’m not the kind of person who would do that, though.”

Well…I can’t dispute that. While I’m still pretty annoyed about the whole paralytic thing, she’s been far more helpful than she’s been harmful. 

“But I _would_ like you to visit frequently so I can perform checkups on you.” She asks, although it’s closer to an order. 

“Eh…sure.” It’s better than the alternative — namely, _her_ going out of her way to find me. I’m stared at enough at school already without having a direct link to the Goddess of Mercy.

“I would take you on as an apprentice now if I could.” She says, sighing. “As it is, well, it’s not official, but I’m going to _have_ to take on the role of your teacher of medicine. Otherwise they’ll almost certainly find out about your aberration…so consider yourself my apprentice in all but name. Once you get onto a team, I want you to report to me directly so I can take you on as an official apprentice. You’ll have to manage both, but I think you can handle the extra work. ”

I’m…not sure how to react here. In the end, I just go with something simple— 

“Thank you.” I reply. She shrugs.

“I don’t really mind, to be honest. You’re an interesting kid, and I’ll be getting as much out of this as you will.” 

_That’s right…she’ll be refining her theory using me as a subject. I’ll have to trust her discretion…but, in the end, I don’t really have a choice about this, do I?_

_But in the end…things worked out for the best, right? I got railroaded into it pretty hard, but I’ll be getting a lot out of this…even so, it’s rather unpleasant to realize just how powerless you are compared to so many others. Good or not, I don’t really want this to happen again._

_But I’ve also found something rather valuable, something obvious in hindsight but…I hadn’t thought of it. Or, rather, perhaps I didn’t_ believe _in it._

_‘Then just get strong enough to where, by the time you reveal your aberration, you’re too useful to be touchable.’_

In other words…I’ve found a real, tangible goal. To get so strong that I’ll be able to stop hiding. Perhaps…I’ll even hit the point where Hikaru is, where she’s actively revered by many ninja. 

…Okay, I don’t really want that, but the _benefits_ …

“Ah, one last thing that might help you. Stop taking the stabilizer.” 

_Those…?_

“Why?”

“Because they aren’t actually stabilizers. They’re hormone suppressants to balance your physical, mental, and actual age. We don’t want you kids to start _experimenting_ before you’re ready. Besides that, puberty as a whole is an emotional ride. Who knows? Perhaps it’ll help you out.”

“Understood.”

So…I’ll have to become a medic, then. That’s fine. It’s a way to disguise my regeneration powers, on top of the actual benefits it has. I’ll be able to heal Setsuna if she’s injured, as well. And it’ll do wonders for my already high qi control. 

A real goal. 

_This is doable. This is really doable._

For the first time in a long, long while, I’m able to feel something approaching _hope._

  
  



	9. (1.2.5) Guardian, Part 5

#  **1.2.5 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Guardian, Part 5**

“…Wow.” Setsuna mutters, as we exit Hikaru’s house. 

I can’t argue with the sentiment. In the course of a mere two days, I’ve guaranteed an apprenticeship and close relationship with Hikaru Kozakura, the Goddess of Mercy. If I wanted to, I wouldn’t even need to join a ninja team. I could be her apprentice, become a healer and researcher like her…

If I did that, though, Setsuna would most definitely not be able to follow me. Direct healing is an intensive process, and one that requires both extreme qi control, solid theoretical knowledge, and a decent qi capacity. She could manage both of the first two, but the latter isn’t something she’ll ever achieve. 

There’s a reason that seals aren’t used to create pseudo-users like Setsuna more often, and that’s because you simply can’t. Like Setsuna, they’ll suffer from major qi capacity deficiencies. Without the ability to properly manage internal qi and store it, it’s just too challenging to become a ninja. Seals have a hard cap regarding the amount of raw qi they can store without overloading, and it’s quite low. Setsuna will never be able to develop a real affinity, nor cast any elemental techniques. No matter how efficient one gets, there still is a minimum cost to manipulating and manifesting the elements, and Setsuna’s low capacity can’t handle that.

And seal mastery on Setsuna’s level is rare enough as is. I’d estimate that she’s at about the level that most _elite_ ninja are at as an Academy student. If she doesn’t kill herself pursuing the field, she could become quite useful. 

So Setsuna and I both have concrete goals, then. Even though I’ve been guaranteed apprenticeship, I still want to aim for fifth-level healing by the time I become a fourth-star ninja. And Setsuna just has to keep growing. 

We get back home, do our usual closing routine, and find ourselves in bed once more. 

There’s always the possibility that Hikaru’s tricking me, but…I don’t have a choice but to trust her. And besides, I…I think she’s trustworthy. She doesn’t seem to be malicious, even if she tends to act without taking my opinion into account. But still, she’s by far the most experienced and intelligent between the two of us, so I can’t blame her. And her advice _was_ very, very helpful. 

And to think none of this would have happened if I hadn’t turned into that alley. 

I close my eyes, letting myself drift off as Setsuna’s hand slips into mine. 

_Fate, huh…?_

_…_

"A tantric ritual." Hikaru suddenly says one day, clapping her hands.

"What is that?"

She smirks. "A sex ritual."

I blanch. "We're not putting that into practice until we're both ready."

...

"Oh."

I wait for her to process the words.

"Okay."

I blink. 

_Apparently, Setsuna has no objections._

_..._

I continue researching. Qi theory, aberrations, tantric rituals, seals, I devour knowledge on my days off and during afternoons and nights, learning as much as I can. I’m not able to make much progress on the tantric ritual, though. For now, I put it aside, vowing to come back to it later when I understand the whole idea more. When I’m not studying, I’m training my body, mind, and qi. I visit Hikaru every other day, and begin developing a solid background in medicine. She helps train my Ice abilities, as well, since I won’t be able to kill someone like her even on accident. 

Setsuna continues chasing stories and learning about her specialization, constantly practicing and growing herself. I hone my sword skills against her, and she grows faster and stronger in return.

The four boys that tried to bully us never bothered us again, and three of them wound up dropping out at the end of sixth-year, anyways. 

…

I Awaken all four elements. Hikaru confirms that she can’t detect any traces of my Ice aberration unless she full-scans me while I’m unconscious…so I feel much safer about my secret than I did before.

And, last but not least, Hikaru instructs me to add meditation to my daily training. 

…

This is the seventh month in a row I’ve spent on my meditation. An hour a day, trying to understand the Veil inside of me, to figure out how to manipulate it. If this thing is the key to my future insanity…my life, and the lives of those around me, might literally hinge on me being able to figure this out. 

But I can’t… _grasp_ it. 

A bead of sweat runs down my face. On a good day of meditation, I might be able to detect the presence of the Veil…once or twice, at best. Just identifying my own spiritual core is a challenge, even for someone like me. 

It’s impossible to explain to someone who has never done it before what it feels like. The easiest way to describe the feeling is…identifying the part of yourself that is your soul? That is effectively what the Spiritual Core is, after all, according to Hikaru, and I’m inclined to take her word for it.

But still, after seven months of failure, I’m growing more than a little annoyed with my lack of ability to get it. 

“Meditating again?” Setsuna asks from across the room, her voice low to avoid startling me too badly. I open my eyes and nod, legs crossed in a meditative pose on the floor. 

“Trying. Failing.” I say, frustration leaking into my voice despite myself.

“…I can tell. You don’t look very relaxed at all.” 

I bite back on an irritated retort. “I know. Hence the failing part.”

She looks thoughtful. “Perhaps you just have to calm down more?” 

Before I can tell her what I think of that — _do you think I haven’t been_ trying? — she makes her way over to me…and, to my surprise, plants herself in my lap. She pulls my head into her chest, face to the side. 

“Just relax, Yuki. Stop trying so hard…and just do it.” 

I close my eyes, trying to do as she says. To my surprise, I find that it’s…surprisingly easy, to just…feel her warmth and quiet comfort. It reminds me of the feelings I have when we sleep together. Peace.

_So that’s why this is working, then…_

Soon enough, I’m able to feel it once more, the Veil that covers my Spiritual Core. It’s…difficult to explain, something that is both incredibly opaque, but also translucent at the same time…? In my mind, I can see the vaguest glow of my Spiritual Core behind it, but I can’t make out a single detail, even the color of the light…

But still, this is more progress than I’ve made in months. It’s…very promising.

However, the serenity I’ve developed is threatening to falter as a different situation altogether arises, namely where she’s placed my head. My face flushes as I become immediately, instantly aware of the warmth of her body, and the gentle beating of her heart. It’s a shameful series of thoughts that I cut off instantly. 

_Is this the effects of stopping the so-called stabilizer?_

But still— 

_Ah, wait!_

Suddenly, I’m able to perceive more of the Veil. That it covers the entirety of my Spiritual Core, and that…

_I think I understand now._

If this Veil is just a sort of filter over my emotions, then if I were to — temporarily — pull it away— 

But I’m still unsure of how to manipulate it. I don’t have a body in my mind, after all, so it’s not as simple as reaching out and grasping it. 

That’s something to worry about later, though. I’ve made a major breakthrough today. 

“Thanks, Setsuna.” 

She smiles gently.

“I’m happy to be of assistance.”

…

It takes another three months before I’m able to manipulate it for the first time. I’m able to pin down the fact that feeling particularly bright emotions allows me to perceive my Spiritual Core, and by extension my Soul Veil, better.

That leads to a lot of embarrassing situations for me, but it really does help. 

My mastery over my own mind is further improved by a better theoretical understanding of what I’m doing, too — apparently, the “other world” inside me, so to speak, is called my _mindscape._ I’m surprised to find out that all people, not just Users, can develop one. It has some benefits — namely, being able to think rationally within it without being influenced by emotions, and the slowing of time relative to the outside world, giving one more time to think.

Once I’m able to develop an avatar in my mindscape, which is really just a matter of qi control and extreme mental discipline, it isn’t especially challenging to begin manipulating the Veil.

As it turns out, all I need is a certain _force of will._ The Veil isn’t something I could physically interact with if I tried, even with an avatar. Imagine trying to push aside a brick wall, for example. 

But, with enough understanding of just _what_ it is...

...

With a deep sigh, I open my eyes. 

“How’d it go?” Setsuna asks, still on my lap.

Instantly, blood rushes to my face.

_Nope. Nope, nope, nope._

Without the slightest bit of hesitation, I return the Veil back to where it was before, blissfully sealing my emotions to their normal state.

“It went well.” I say simply. 

“You don’t…seem much different.” 

_Well, I guess she wouldn’t know that I closed my Veil again._

“What were you expecting?” I ask, mildly amused. 

“…I don’t know.” She admits. 

I blink.

“…Well, I don’t think I’ll change all that much.” I reply truthfully. I don’t really plan on leaving the Veil totally undone, not if I can’t control myself without it. Having that sort of control over my emotions is incredibly valuable to me, and not something I particularly hated. If anything, I’ll have to look into whether or not I’m able to control how _much_ of it is…active, so to speak.

Setsuna doesn’t look especially disappointed, which I take as a good sign. 

…

Setsuna and I manage to get into seventh year with no fuss. Kaede makes it to her seventh year, but drops out halfway through, deciding to return to her civilian family. I lose contact with her shortly after, but it seems like she’s doing okay, according to Sayaka. 

Speaking of the blue-haired girl, she throws herself into practicing and growing stronger, ramping up her growth and becoming a truly worthy rival. 

Setsuna keeps improving, patching up her flaws in close-ranged combat and improving on her strengths. She’s still a bit below me in fighting ability, but she makes up for it with her incredible utility with seals. And, besides, I’m closer to a frontline specialist than she is, anyways, though I’m as much a utility specialist as she is with my healing. It’s only natural that I take on the role of the shield, protecting her. 

I pick up the basics of sealing from her, enough to identify the basics and then some. In exchange, she learns the fundamentals of medicine and anatomy. And my power only grows. 

But even so…sometimes I feel stifled. I want more than anything to be strong enough to rise above the law that would see me killed. I want to be _strong_. 

So graduation comes as a relief. The final examination comes, but it isn’t particularly noteworthy. I take top three or better in every position except pure hand-to-hand, where Sayaka, some other guy, and this one older-looking girl with incredible speed and power handily defeat me. Setsuna isn’t far behind me. I’m finally placed on a team — coincidentally, or perhaps not, with Setsuna. Either way, we’ll certainly not complain about it.

Now all that’s left to do is find our teammate and our handler, the latter who has been mentioned offhandedly by Hikaru more than once now. I’m sure he’ll be an interesting character. I don’t know how to feel about our teammate, supposedly a girl named ‘Mari’…but, well, we’ll see how it goes.

So, with Setsuna standing at my side, we head off. Away from the Academy, and towards the uncertain future that lies ahead. 

It’s just the beginning, after all. 

  
  



	10. (1.2.6) Guardian, Closing

#  **1.2.6 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Guardian, Closing**

**A Challenge to the Mainstream Affinity Baseline Theory** by the  **Grey Ghost of Alune**

**Preface**

The theory is simple — that one’s primary affinity helps set a baseline for the personality. 

Dive a little deeper into it, and you might be able to point to the way that Psychia has genuine effects on the mind and soul — that a trauma can permanently influence one’s qi. 

On the surface, it seems sound. It seems irrefutable to contest the latter point — the way that magic functions is proof enough. Psychia undeniably has a profound effect on the mind and soul of its User. And this same Psychia is, to borrow a magical term,  _ colored _ by the natural affinity of the User. 

But then there exist four points of contradiction in this theory— 

Firstly, what of the non-Users, those who have not chosen to or have been unable to Awaken their first element? Are they simply empty souls with no internal guidance at all, shaped solely by the experiences of life?

Secondly, what of those who have come to reject their primary element? This occurs frequently in Fire Users who have experienced a fire-related trauma. If  _ Intent _ shapes the Psychia, what happens to one who firmly rejects it?

Thirdly, what of an Aberrant who has achieved such a high level of mastery that they could be called a Spellweaver, or even…an Incarnation? If we accept the common thought that Aberrants are the most primal, the most  _ naturalized _ , of the affinities, then is one who has achieved the pinnacle of casting forever locked within the limits of their baseline personality? 

Lastly, given that an Affinity Shift  _ completely cleanses _ the coloring of one element in order to bring upon another, how can the Psychia affect one who no longer is affected by it?

I have found myself in the unique position of being personally close to individuals who meet all these requirements. This book will consist of both my personal observations of these people as well as hard scientific research and data collection. 

Let us begin. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus ends Act 1. See you in Act 2!


	11. (2.1.1) Spark, Part 1

#  **2.1.1 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Spark, Part 1**

Setsuna and I make our way to the training ground that we’ve been assigned to. It’s mostly a blank field of dirt, although about two hundred meters away begins a central sprawling forest that connects all eight of the training zones in this particular area together. 

A tall girl stands in the middle of the field, her back facing us. As we get within a few meters, she stiffens, then turns around.

_ So this is our other teammate. Mari.  _

She towers over Setsuna and has a few centimeters up on me, even. Her clothes are on the darker side, and consists of simple denim shorts and a black blouse. Idly, I note that she is fairly attractive, but not quite in a cute way. A confident way, rather, someone who seems quite sure of their own capabilities…

_ Dangerous.  _

Something that particularly interests me is her long, chocolate-brown hair. Long hair is unusual for most ninja, as it is a major weak spot in close-combat. So for her to have long hair…it’s a bit alarming. What’s the reason behind it? Confidence? Arrogance? Something else? With the way she absolutely destroyed the CQC portion of the final examination, I’m positive it isn’t because she isn’t aware of the risk.

Her limbs are clearly toned and muscular, although not in an excessive way. Therefore, she probably is quite competent in enhanced CQC, although from what I recall, she was  _ quite _ fast and strong even without. I’m not able to glean a more accurate age from her — she has what is obviously a more adult body, but she should have just graduated from the Academy. 

_ I recognize her from the Graduation Exam. In the CQC portion of the fight, she completely dominated both fights without using a single technique. Her ability to fight in close range is extremely high for our level, well beyond my own. I’d know, since she’s the one who kicked my ass. _

_ I also know that she’s at least two years older than us, according to Sayaka.  _

Her bright red eyes scrutinize me thoroughly before moving on to Setsuna, looking both of us from head to toe. She seems to dismiss us after a moment, turning away almost contemptuously. 

I roll my eyes. 

_ One of these types. It matches her appearance, at least. _

Besides me, Setsuna glances over, indicating that she wants me to take the lead. 

“Good afternoon.” I say cordially. 

She doesn’t respond. 

“My name is Yuki. This is Setsuna. You must be Mari, right?” I try again. 

“Why do I need to know your names?” She asks, glancing at us over her shoulder.

“…Because we’ll be on the same team?” I blink. I would have thought that was obvious, but—

She laughs shortly. “No, we won’t be.” 

_ I see.  _

It takes a bit of effort to avoid responding to that. Besides me, Setsuna’s lips curl into a slight frown, but she doesn’t react beyond that.

“Well.” A voice says from in front of us. “Isn’t this just fucking peachy?” 

The man looking at us —  _ when did he get there?  _ — has a severe expression, towering above all of us. Covering his face is a pure white mask that reveals nothing about his features. His hair is steel grey, and his simple shirt and long pants are pure black. The kind of look that you might expect from the civilian idea of a ninja, but he’s incredibly fit. Two sword hilts peek out from his left and right shoulder respectively, and his bare arms are marked with ink tattoos. 

Setsuna gasps quietly, and I look closer. Not tattoos. Those are seals! 

He matches the description we were given of our handler. It’s probably safe to say that this is the one we’re looking for, then. I’ll hear him out fir— 

“Look here, you fucking squirts.” He snarls. His tone should be comical in how crass it is and how obvious it is that he is trying to project authority, but —  _ it works.  _ Even though I know in my head that he’s just _ trying  _ to be intimidating, I nonetheless feel  _ quite _ intimidated. And I’m not the only one — Setsuna’s several shades paler, and Mari’s backed away to be in line with us.

“I asked for a fucking team, not a bunch of shits that won’t work together. Now, I could beat the shit out of all of you or teach some kind of life lesson here, but I’m not going to bother with that. It is currently three in the afternoon. I will be back in one hour. If you bitches haven’t pulled the sticks out of your collective asses by then, you’re all going right the fuck back to the Academy.” 

_ Holy hell is he terrifying _ . 

What should be really funny…is instead chilling me to my bones. But I can’t let him know that. 

“Understood, sir.” I reply. “We will commence with the stick-pulling shortly.”

Even Mari can’t resist shooting a  _ ‘what the fuck _ ’ look at me for that one. 

He turns his full attention to me. I call on my internal Veil to freeze my emotions a little, more than I usually use it publicly, and meet his gaze head on. 

_ Those iron eyes of his are incredibly coldly analytical. It feels like he can see right through me. But even so… _

“You’re an interesting one, kid.” He finally says. “Well. We’ll see where you go. Show me you aren’t all talk, then.” He turns on his heel. “See you brats in fifty-nine minutes.” 

He walks away with deliberate slowness, and we don’t relax until he’s out of sight, leaving us alone on the training ground.

“What a waste of time.” Mari says bitterly. “I’m going to go do something productive. Bye.” She heads in the direction of the forest. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask. “You heard him. We need to learn to get along, or we’ll go back to the Academy.”

“You’re very mistaken if you think I’ll be doing any of that. Fuck the Academy. I’ll become an apprentice instead.” She says flatly, picking up her pace. I begin to follow her, Setsuna at my side. And an idea pops into my head—

“And how is that working out for you?” I ask. Mari stiffens. “If you could do it as easily as you say you can, since you  _ obviously _ don’t want to be here,  _ you’d already be one. _ But you’re struggling to find someone to take you, aren’t you?” 

She goes silent.

“I’m right, aren’t I? That’s a truth you can’t escape by running from it. Unless you want to go back to the Academy, you’re going to need to put up with us.”

“At least I won’t be with you two.” She snaps out. 

My temper flares. 

“What is your problem with us?” 

_ “The problem with you is that you’re both too damn weak!”  _ Mari spits out, finally stopping and turning around furiously. I fume. I graduated at close to the top of the class academically, and was  _ the _ strongest male combatant. Setsuna was the top academically, and the third best female combatant. And neither of us are even combat-based! We’re both utility ninja! We’re definitely  _ not _ weak for our level.

_ Ah, but that’s the problem. For  _ our _ level, we aren’t weak — but Mari is two years older than us. She’s almost certainly at a level well above our own.  _

Which raises the question again — why was she in the Academy in the first place? 

“I don’t want you two holding me back. Which means you both will most definitely not be on my team. Figure that out, before I teach you by force.” 

_ We’re a good fifty meters into the forest now. Help isn’t coming if something goes wrong. _

“Look. This is your final warning. You two aren’t good enough for me. Go back to the Academy. Or, better yet — give up on being ninja.” The hairs on my arm rise up in warning. __

Mari’s arms begin to swirl with a glimmering, intensely neon blue energy. It looks like it ought to be frying her flesh from its bones, but she remains unharmed. Then…she must be an  _ aberration.  _ It’s like Lightning — I’m familiar with the feel from one of our classmates — but far more intense, more… _ primal _ …

Even so… 

“No.” I reply flatly. She grits her teeth.

“ _ Suit yourself _ .”

The threat in her voice causes Setsuna and I to go on edge, the former’s hand finding the hilt of her sword as black lines run down her skin. 

“There are two rules to life.” She says calmly, standing in a relaxed pose with her arms at her side. “The first is that the strong do whatever they want. And the second?” 

Her right iris suddenly glows a vivid, electric blue.

“The second is that the weak don’t have choices. Allow me to demonstrate.”

Even with that verbal warning, I’m caught off-guard by how fast she moves, vanishing from her spot and reappearing in front of me with arm pulled back. In a lightning-fast motion, she smashes her fist into my chest and I go flying back a dozen meters to crash against a tree.

“Grk!” Blood instantly fills my mouth as I feel more than a few bones crack. Worse than that, though, is the paralysis that sets in, my muscles refusing to respond to my commands. It’s certainly a result of that intense electricity that swirls around her arms. 

_ Damn it! _

“I held back a lot there. You should have only broken a handful of ribs. That’s the limit of my patience, though. If you get back up again I’m going to hit you a lot harder, and I can’t guarantee you’ll survive.” 

Through blurry vision, I watch Mari turn to Setsuna — and catch her sword mid-swing as it aims for her throat. 

“Aiming for a fatal strike? Hm. You’re interesting…” With her incredible agility, she snatches Setsuna by the throat, eliciting a pained gasp out of her as she squirms and kicks. “But still so,  _ so _ weak. Your aura is pitiful. You should have never graduated from the Academy. But…hm, you knew that, didn’t you? And yet—“ 

An icy spear thuds into her left shoulder, splattering blood everywhere. She gives it a curious look before yanking it out with her free hand. 

“Huh. This is…” She parries the second one I hurl almost carelessly. “This is well done. A phase-shifted water spear...that’s pretty decently complicated, actually. Hm…”

“I missed.” I snarl, still locked in my throwing position. “I was aiming for your head.”

_ No. I didn’t miss. Without looking, she shifted her position so that it would only hit shallowly. Not good. Not only is she so aware of her surroundings that she didn’t need to be watching me to dodge, she isn’t even remotely concerned by what is a fairly complicated form of Water Materialization.  _

_ And I snapped, too — that isn’t a ‘phase-shifted’ water spear, that’s an Ice spear. I didn’t have time to shift to Water — it still takes me thirty seconds to make that change, and I was sitting on Wind. Changing to Water against an obvious electricity user would be the height of insanity. Good thing she jumped to that conclusion, though… _

She grins, bloodthirsty. “Now that’s the spirit.” Without hesitation, she throws Setsuna to the side, letting her slam into a nearby trunk. I grit my teeth, clamping down on my emotions.

That’s not good. Setsuna doesn’t have the kind of regeneration that I do. What was a fairly serious injury was taken care of in twenty seconds, but it would seriously hurt her. Thankfully, she looks okay, if a bit dazed, but that could change if she’s hit again.

So I need to distract her. But how? She dramatically outclasses me at every step of close-combat — which is the range I specialize at. Somehow, I don’t think my rather weak mid-range and long-range techniques will do anything, either.

Even if I stopped trying to hide my Ice abilities…I don’t think there’s a real chance I’ll win. She outclasses me, and badly. I’m about at the level of a two-star ninja, according to Hikaru, which puts me well above ordinary graduates. But this girl… _ definitely _ is several magnitudes of order stronger than me. Even if there were ten of me, she’d still crush me. 

Well, combat isn’t a good option, then. She beats me in power, speed, and reflexes, but…how about intelligence? Can I trick her?

The beginnings of a plan begin forming in my mind. It might not work, but…it’s probably my best chance of success. If I fail here, though, there’s a good chance that I’ll die. Damn it, where’s our handler?

I close my eyes, preparing to commit to the plan as my qi begins following my direction. Then open them, resolved. 

Without hesitation, I take a throwing knife from my belt— 

  
— and hold it to my throat. 


	12. (2.1.2) Spark, Part 2

#  **2.1.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Spark, Part 2**

“What.” Mari says flatly. 

“You want teammates. Strong ones, and loyal ones. How many of them would trust a backstabbing snake who’s willing to kill her own comrades because she’s dissatisfied with them?” I ask, voice hard.

“You’re the one holding the knife to your throat.” She says, deadpan. 

“How many people will know that? What they will know is that three walked in, and two walked out. They won’t know why or how. Your abrasive nature is well known, as well as your penchant for rejecting teammates — the natural assumption will be that you killed them, and they won’t listen to your story. Our handler is the only one who could contradict that, but he’ll be facing investigation since one of his students killed another one, and within minutes of meeting. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll be interested in helping you. By the time the truth gets out, it’ll be too late, and your trustworthiness amongst all of our peers will be absolutely zero. After all, who would believe that someone would do something like this?” I state calmly, letting her come to her own conclusions. 

It’s even true. Both of her issues are probably well known by at least the higher-ups, if not our peers. I hadn’t paid attention to this girl in the Academy, since she wasn’t in my class. Although of course I can’t say for certain how others will react to the situation I’ve just painted out, it’s definitely the most likely outcome based on my analysis of her personality so far. And, even if it wasn’t a probable outcome, she just needs to think it’s a possibility. 

“You’d cut your own throat out just because you couldn’t get on my team?” 

“If I fail here, I’ll have to wait six months before I graduate again. I’m stagnating. I need a handler. There’s no point in me wasting time in the Academy any longer. I don’t know what freak of nature you are, but I graduated at close to or the top of my class academically and in pure combat. So although I don’t stack up to you in combat, which, you know, you would expect from a utility-type ninja anyways, I know that I’m good. And I refuse to sit there and waste my time any longer, especially because of someone like you!”

Mari’s expression hardens, and her aura spikes, telegraphing her disappearance—

And without hesitation, I plunge the blade into my throat and flick, precisely cutting my right common carotid artery open and spraying blood in front of me even as I focus my own internal energies—

“You crazy bastard!” She spits out, reappearing in front of me, leaning forward to presumably apply pressure on the wound.

Hands below her view, I materialize a tiny blade of Wind and stab her in the stomach. 

“Wha—!” She gasps, clearly shocked. Then a second exclamation when I violently destabilize the qi contained in the blade and it tears apart, further wounding her. Then I spin and kick her away from me, sending her slamming into the ground.

Then I collapse to my knees, wincing as my hands fly up to my throat.

It was a small cut. I aimed very precisely and hit exactly what I wanted, enough to slash through skin and tear a hole through my artery, without ripping the whole thing in half. 

It makes it easier for my regeneration to kick in, healing the wound within a half-dozen seconds. Even so, it was close, I think, blood loss kicking in rapidly and causing my head to spin wildly.

But I’m not done yet. I have to make sure she’s…she’s…

Ah. Setsuna’s beaten me there, holding her own knife to Mari’s throat, close enough to draw blood.

“Don’t give me a reason.” She whispers. “You already know I’ll do it.”

“Ha…hahahaha! I underestimated you both. I’ll admit that. But I’m not the only one being underestimated.” She grins toothily. Without hesitation, Setsuna slams the knife home…or tries to, anyways. She can’t seem to get it through — there’s a barrier of some sort, composed of her blue qi.

“Look, I…ah, quit that, would you?” Mari smacks the knife out of Setsuna’s hand and, strangely enough, gently pushes her away. The shorter girl leaps away cautiously, prepared to draw another weapon. 

“Yeah, fuck it. I’ll give you two a chance.” She blinks, and her blue eye reverts to its original color.

“It’s hard to take that at face value.” I murmur. 

She gives me a hard look. “Step one of teamwork is trust. I’ll admit we got off on the wrong foot, but if you want to get out of the Academy right now, you don’t have a choice. So get used to it.”

She has a point. It doesn’t rule out the possibility of her lying, but…

I glance at Setsuna, who nods. As a unit, we both relax, the lines running down Setsuna’s arms and legs fading away.

_ Perhaps it’s best to try the whole introduction thing again. _

“Yuki. No last name.” 

“Setsuna. Also no last name.” 

Mari gives us an interested look. 

“You’ll probably be able to find it somewhere if you look. But I don’t care. I don’t recognize my last name.” I say matter-of-factly.

“I don’t know who my parents are.” Setsuna says quietly. “Orphan.” 

The red-eyed girl nods. “I see. The same. Father died at war, and my mom died giving birth to me; my aberration fucked her insides up.” She looks mildly contemplative, but not especially depressed. It seems that whatever emotional issues her background might have caused have been resolved, the same as Setsuna and I. 

Good. That will reduce issues down the road.

“Well, you two already know me. Mari Aono. I’m an aberration, of the type ‘Storm’. I have competency in Wind and Fire, with extreme specialization in my own element, and am designated as a fourth-star ninja.”

The Storm type!? And fourth-star?! Just coming out of graduation?!

Users with the Storm aberration are intensely wild. It’s basically the Lightning aberration kicked up to eleven. They have extremely free personalities that make them very difficult to control, and are therefore monitored carefully. Furthermore, their powers manifest in ways that tend to be especially intense, even compared to Lightning users in general. It’s definitely a large contributor to how highly ranked she is.

To make a comparison, Storm is to Lightning what Blackfire is to Fire. They’re related, certainly, but one is on a whole different level. The reason I’m aware of the Storm aberration, despite how rare it is, is because it had been one of the affinities where, had I met a User of it in combat, I would immediately flee.

And here I have one as my teammate. What are the odds? 

“I’m a combat utility specialist, with competency in healing. I’ve awakened all four elements, but specialize heavily in Wind and Water. I’m currently at a second-star level, although I don’t officially have the rank.” I say.

“I’m a combat utility specialist as well, although less so than Yuki. I heavily specialize in battlefield seals, although I’m only officially a first-star overall.”

The lack of an affinity seems to catch Mari’s attention, but she doesn’t question it.

“A combat seal specialist? How many prints can you even do, at your level?”

Setsuna glances at me, and I nod. 

“Seven.”

Prints, shorthand for qi seal printing, is a specialist sealing technique where a sealer with extreme competency with a certain seal and a high level of qi control uses their qi to brand the seal onto a material. It’s a much faster way to write seals and any sealer worth their salt has one or two.

There aren’t many sealers worth their salt, so printers are already mildly rare. With seven prints in her toolkit, Setsuna’s probably within the top twenty sealers in the entire village…at a graduate age.

Mari’s eyes widen. “Seven?!”

“Standard explosive, standard seal, velocity seal, paralysis seal, time-field array, identification array, and positional array.”

The Storm user contemplates this. “And why don’t they have a village treasure like you locked up?”

Setsuna smiles. “Because I’ll be an absolute monster on the battlefield, if I survive long enough to get good. And that’s probably why I’ve been placed on your team.”

The utility of a seal master on the battlefield in the context of an army is incalculable. And one like Setsuna? She could be an army-killer all on her own, later on.

And as for Mari…well, Storm users are loose cannons, but not uncontrollable. You can predict their unpredictability, and force them into specific choices and options. 

In this case…planting one onto a talented utility team to keep them alive…knowing that our personalities would clash initially…

Setsuna and I both have a significant desire to prove ourselves, and Mari doesn’t want anyone she doesn’t deem as worthy. But it seems that all three of us are analytical types, and we realized that we don’t gain anything from permanently being at odds. It seems that we actually click decently well, so far…

Well, at least on my end, Mari is definitely a useful teammate. What she lacks in finesse, she makes up for in high power and speed. And she isn’t an idiot, which means I don’t have to worry about her running off and dying. With her power…yeah, we’re almost certainly the strongest team out of the Academy gate. 

“Ah, I forgot to ask — is your throat okay? I didn’t pay attention to it earlier because you seemed fine, but…” The red-eyed girl asks.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I’m a healer, but I’m especially good at healing myself. You were right, I had no intention of killing myself over this. I just needed you to think that I would.”

She gives me an almost admiring look.

“I can respect that. Seems like you have some leadership potential, too.” Her smile turns — genuine? “Looks like you two weren’t the only one who lucked out on the teammate roulette.” 

Was that a…compliment? Ah, wait, before that, I can’t believe I didn’t take care of this earlier…! 

“What about your stomach and shoulder?” I ask. Mari looks surprised.

“Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten about that. How good of a healer are you?” 

How do you forget about being stabbed in the stomach?

“Good enough to heal what damage I’ve done. Come here.” I reply professionally. 

She obeys, lifting her shirt up when I motion her to do so. 

“This wound’s a lot smaller than I anticipated.” I muse. Just to be safe, I do a quick scan of her body. It doesn’t seem like there was much damage at all, other than the initial stab wound. That’s definitely strange, since it was supposed to have done a decent bit of damage when I popped the blade and released some of my weaponized qi directly inside of her body. 

“My aura is simply stronger than yours. Your secondary attack, although a good idea, wasn’t strong enough to really get past my natural resistances, so it only hurt like a bitch instead of really cutting anything. If you want to get that to work, you need to work on intensifying your qi further.” 

I acknowledge that with a nod and heal the wound with direct healing — after all, it’s good advice. My attack caused a clean-cut injury, so it’s very easy to heal. Her shoulder wound is even easier to mop up, having barely penetrated. No wonder she wasn’t worried.. Soon enough, she’s good as new, and I step back, satisfied.

“What about you, Setsuna?” I ask, remembering. “You got thrown around pretty hard.” 

She steps forward, and I run a glowing hand over her. There’s some bruising around her throat and back, but nothing serious. It doesn’t take more than a minute to fix up.

“We should head back.” Setsuna says, glancing up at the sky. According to my internal clock, we have…about half an hour left. 

“Sure.”

There’s no real rush, though. We’ve completed our primary objective. I’m still unsure about Setsuna’s feelings towards our teammate, but Mari and I have come to an understanding. And it seems that Mari doesn’t hold any animosity towards my friend for her attempted murder, either. 

This fight did highlight something very important, though. We’re not weak for our level, but that’s not good enough. If I want to be able to survive, I need to get much, much stronger. 

We take our places on the edge of the tree line, waiting for our handler to return. Setsuna immediately finds a good tree to lean on and, seemingly, falls asleep.

Mari glances at her, apparently a little uneasy. Then back at me. I meet her gaze head-on. 

“What’s up with you two?” She asks.

“What do you mean?”

She points at the sleeping ninja. “She’s super quiet, but she seems to take a lot of cues from you. After I attacked you, she went for a lethal strike. You guys have a synergy that many experienced ninja don’t have, but you just came out of the academy. All of these signs point to some kind of elite training, but you guys aren’t the emotionless robots that those guys are — well, you aren’t, at least, but even Setsuna acted on an impulse to protect you. And, if I’m to be blunt, while you two are good for your age, you aren’t quite at that level. So…what’s that about?”

Is that the faintest hint of envy I hear?

“We’re partners, and have been for…hm, almost two years? You probably haven’t noticed because she tries to avoid standing out too much, and — if I recall correctly — you were only in the Academy for the last three months.”

Which provides a possible timeline for her issues with apprenticeship…

“Partners? Meaning…?”

“Everything you can imagine. We live, eat, and sleep together.” I say, smiling slightly. “She’s always by my side, and I by hers. That’s why we’re able to read each other so well..”

“Why are you two like that?” 

“That’s not my place to say. But I will say that I saved her life, and she saved mine. If you want an analogy, I suppose you could say that I’m her shield, and she’s my sword. Incidentally, Mari, that’s…probably why she doesn’t like you very much. Well, the initial arrogance is most of it, but also because your part in the team is that of the sword. She preferred the partnership to this team, I think.”

“I see.” Mari says contemplatively, but I’m not done.

“I can’t say for sure, but I think her decision not to kill you was a close one.” 

The red-eyed girl blinks.

“There wasn’t a moment of that entire fight where she was a threat to me.” She retorts. 

“A hypothetical question. Do you remember what her speciality is?”

A pause, and then Mari’s eyes widen as she pulses her qi, trying to locate—

“It’s an explosive seal on your shirt. Don’t panic, she has no intention of detonating it. But to say that she was never a threat to you is wrong. Please don’t take me wrong, we’re not threatening you. It’s more of a reminder not to underestimate us.” 

Mari looks up from where she’s busy cutting a hole out of her shirt with a knife. “This is when she pinned me on the ground, right?” 

“Yep. One hand on your shirt, one hand printing. She pulsed her qi to mask it, pretending like it was a spike of emotion rather than her burning a mark onto your clothes.”

The scrap of clothing with the seal flutters off, leaving her mildly indecent. The seal itself wasn’t too big, so she isn’t completely exposed…but she’ll probably have to find a new shirt.

“Huh.” A beat of silence.

“Hey…I really am sorry we got off on the wrong foot.” She says, and although it’s a little…strangely worded, to say the least, I do think it’s genuine.

I mean…you were the one who started it, but…well, it’s okay. 

“Look, because of my aberration and my skill level, I’m going to be thrown into more dangerous situations. That’s no place for fresh Academy graduates. I didn’t want to be on a team, but the higher-ups forced me to go through the Academy. However, if I had been sent back…then I could have quit and found a different way to be a ninja, without involving people who weren’t ready to be running with me.” 

That…if you take genuine concern for others as her motivation…that does make a lot of sense. I’m surprised she’s telling me all of this, but, again, if she really does want this team to work…

Obviously, this whole story could be a set-up, and she could be setting up for a betrayal of some kind. My instincts say no, though. And I’m inclined to trust them on this one.

“What do you think, Setsuna?” I ask. Mari starts, surprised.

“I think she’s telling the truth.” She agrees with my internal assessment.

“You were awake this whole time?!” Mari exclaims, then frowns. “But I was watching you, and you didn’t show—“

Normally, one’s aura fluctuates slightly when they awaken. No matter how good someone is at faking sleep, that fact is unavoidable. Furthermore, qi activity in the aura is different when one is conscious versus unconscious. Therefore, any decent sensor can determine whether or not someone is really sleeping.

“You were right, with what you said earlier. My aura is pitifully weak. That also makes it extremely challenging to detect changes in it, too.” Setsuna says quietly. “Since it was so inactive, you assumed that I was sleeping. But that’s just my default level of qi. I’m…not a natural User.”

Mari narrows her eyes in thought, but doesn’t say anything.

“Well, well. Look at you three. Looks like things sure have taken an upturn.” Our handler suddenly appears again out of nowhere, this time — from the forest side? From behind us!? 

“Yes, sir. The sticks have been removed.” I salute, the other two joining me (although Mari sends me another dirty look for the joke). 

“Good. Now, I have to come up with some kind of appropriate punishment for you little bastards making me wait so long…” We exchange nervous looks. Despite those ominous words, he does seem to be in a bit of a better mood.

“Aha! I know. Let’s race to exit the training ground. The last one out gets an extra special punishment.” 

Two hundred meters? That’s all? That’s only a few seconds of running. What’s his game? 

“Don’t…Don’t I have an unfair advantage?” Mari asks. 

He grins at her in a way that is outright unsettling. “Why yes, you do! Don’t worry, though. I’ll be sure to…even the odds.”

I feel a brief surge of pity for the Storm user. 

“Three! Two! One! GO—“ 

Faster than I can track, he’s standing in front of Mari and kicks her into the closest tree just as her Storm aura flares up. With a pained gasp, her qi fizzles out as he grabs her by the throat, pinning her with one hand.

“Well, get on with it.” He says dryly, ignoring the girl behind him pulling out a knife. “You have a race to win, and I have a lesson to hand out, you could say, about excessive force.” 

Mari stabs him in the arm — or tries to. The metal shatters upon contact. 

“Good thought, but you should have tried charging it with electricity first. Although I wouldn’t have noticed that either, to be honest.” 

I frown, analyzing the situation.

“Well, go on, you little fucks. Head on out.” 

Setsuna glances at me, looking for a cue. I shake my head, stepping forth.

“What’s the point of a team-building test if you immediately subvert it with an exercise designed to split it?” I ask.

He sends me a hard, unamused look. “It is my duty to handle punishment and discipline. Now get out of here, before I decide to make things harder for you, too.” 

My eyes narrow as I think rapidly. 

“You definitely know about the fight we had in the forest. That hint about excessive force confirms it, and it’d be dangerously negligent on your part as a handler to have not been there at all. From that, we can assume you were there, just in case, and you wanted to see how we’d fit together. And now you’re testing whether or not Setsuna and I are willing to go above and beyond to make the team work, whereas before you were testing Mari’s willingness to be on a team, weren’t you?”

He laughs. Without further pause, he releases Mari from her chokehold. She collapses to the ground, gagging. 

“Are you hurt?” I ask, already beginning to channel energy to my hands.

“N-No. He wasn’t actually squeezing that hard.” She says, wincing and rubbing her throat as she gets to her feet. Setsuna hasn’t taken her eyes off of our handler, watching him warily. 

“Well, this confirms my suspicions. Yuki, as of now you are officially a two-star ninja. You are also the team leader. Any objections?” He asks, glancing at my…my teammates. 

“No.” Setsuna. 

“Sounds good.” Mari.

I blink owlishly. I didn’t expect to be instantly promoted in the field within thirty minutes of meeting my handler. Scratch that, it wasn’t even the field, just a training ground. That’s…that’s just bizarre. I’m also a little surprised that Mari didn’t object to being under someone so much weaker than her, but…I guess she respects me even more than I thought she did.

And as for our handler…he’s unpredictable, intelligent, and manipulative. That’s not good. I’ll have to watch out for him, and I’m definitely going to be asking Hikaru about him later, to see if there’s anything she knows about him. I need to figure out everything I can about this man.

He’s dangerous. 

  
  



	13. (2.1.3) Spark, Part 3

#  **2.1.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Spark, Part 3**

“Well, that little tussle you had there in the woods gave me an excellent idea on what to start you guys with. Setsuna and Yuki, you two need to work on your physical conditioning. I’ll start you on some exercises that you can do, but what we’ll do right now is you will both run as hard as you can.” 

Sounds simple enough. We can do that on our own time whenever we please, though, so what’s the catch?

“Mari will be working to hunt and subdue you, so you’d better run fast. And, by the way,” He glances at me, “This is a real exercise. Treat it like one.”

I close my eyes. So an exercise for Setsuna and I to push our bodies and reflexes to the brink. And an exercise for Mari to practice pursuit. But isn’t this heavily unfair for us? Mari’s ability to chase is far higher than…

_ Wait. ’To hunt’?  _

Is he implying that we can  _ hide _ ? That changes the game entirely. We definitely can’t outrun Mari forever. But if the goal is ultimately to escape, then…

“What will you be doing?” I ask.

“I’ll be giving you a head start to make things fair.” 

_ Yes! We’re definitely supposed to hide here. Physical conditioning is something Setsuna and I can do on our own time, given useful pointers and exercises. He’s putting us in a battle situation, instead of having us mindlessly practice. I can appreciate that. _

“Any other rules?” I ask. He grins.

“Don’t kill each other, or hurt anyone outside of the game. Don’t enter the village, but you can use the entire training ground, including the section of forest allotted to us. The game ends when one of the conditions are met: Yuki is unable to move, Mari is unable to move, or it hits six-o-clock.”

_ Just under two hours? Also, what’s with that wording? If I or Mari are disabled, the game ends? What about Setsuna? _

“Am I correct in guessing that Setsuna and I win if the timer runs down?” I ask. 

“Yes.”

_ Oh! I understand. There’s three different people, with three different but related primary objectives. Mari wants to stop me from moving. Setsuna, my guard, wants to disable Mari. And I, the VIP, want to run down the clock. Setsuna and I still win if I ‘survive’ for long enough, though, so that’s the real ultimate goal. Knocking out Mari, though, ends the game faster. Since we don’t lose if Setsuna gets knocked out, it becomes heavily in her interest to buy time to escape  _ even if it means she doesn’t make it out.

_ He never explicitly said we could hide, but that’s blatantly what we’re supposed to do. We can’t possibly dodge Mari for nearly two hours. There has to be a catch, and that catch is that we’re able to hide and stall for time.  _

What is our handler’s role, then? 

Ah! Typical elite teams run in cells of three or four. So he’s already taken on the role of ‘sacrificial lamb’, and will be distracting the pursuit team and therefore buying us more time to escape. So this game is simulating…an escape from an enemy invasion, perhaps, where we’ve gathered some very important intel on an enemy, but was found out in the process. To win, we have to stall and escape with the info. My teammates in this situation are expendable, which is why there’s no penalty for anyone except me being caught out. 

This kind of situation…yes, I can see it happening. A small scouting party is overrun at the border by an enemy invasion, and to make sure the village isn’t caught by surprise, one person flees while the other two do everything they can to stall. 

“Understood, sir.” I say, satisfied. He gives me an amused look. 

“I’m quite sure you have. Everyone ready?”

Setsuna shoots me an uncertain glance. I smile slightly at her, and then subtly gesture behind me with a twitch of my finger. She nods in return.

“Yes, sir.” Setsuna.

“Yes, sir!” Mari.

“Well, then. Whenever you’re ready.”

It takes us half a second to process his words. Then I immediately turn around and begin running towards the forest, calling on my Wind to boost my speed. Setsuna follows me, flaring her support seals and channeling qi into her hands as she grabs for something on her belt.

Just in time, she whirls around and unseals a wooden shield, which cracks under the power of a spear of lightning that would have sunk right into my back. Reinforcing her foot with qi, she lets go of the shield and drop-kicks it right at Mari’s head, before turning around to continue running. 

It’s at this point our handler intervenes, catching the spinning shield nonchalantly with one hand as Mari dodges and ramming it into her guard, sending her skidding away. 

He’s buying us time to escape. Not to hide, but to escape, and give us a fair fighting chance.

We have to exploit that. The biggest question: do Setsuna and I split up, or stay together? Each comes with its own benefits. The problem is, once she goes down, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to revive her in time for the game. So if we do split up as a distraction or stall tactic, I should only expect to be able to do so once. 

“Setsuna, what sealing supplies do you have?” 

“Five-stock paper and ink, four-stock weapon supplies, a hundred explosive seals, and about twenty prepared scrolls as well as two containment scrolls.” 

_ In other words, five full-capacity sealing scrolls filled with paper and ink and four full-capacity sealing scrolls filled with weapons. _

“Trap distribution?” 

“A hundred and twenty throwing knives, two hundred shuriken in the sealed scrolls. Ten shrapnel bombs and five walls. Three portable lakes and two campfires. Nine more shields. A bunch of other various objects and things that might be useful.”

_ Where the hell did she scrounge up all of that from?  _

“Understood. Look out for me.”

My mind whirls as I dive into my mindscape on the run and put together potential ideas and plans, discarding others left and right as I exploit the ability to think in slowed time. The second I recognized my mindscape’s potential as a way to create time like this, I prioritized learning how to use it on the move. My senses get severely dulled, so I need a spotter, but I’m able to run just fine. 

I frown. The problem is that our opponent is well beyond us in experience. I’m sure she’ll be able to look through the basic traps, if not just outright ignore them. 

_ How about psychology? What can we exploit? It’s a shame she isn’t underestimating us as much anymore. I could have used that to win this.  _

_ Well, I know Setsuna has packed for a decent trip with both of us, so… _

“Step one is to change our clothes.” I say. It’s what she’ll be looking to identify us by in the forest, so…

Setsuna wraps an explosive tag around a dagger and detonates it behind us, throwing up dirt and debris everywhere. The second she does, I begin stripping out of my clothes, Setsuna unsealing a set for both of us. Grabbing our old shirts, I throw knives and pin them to various trees. Hopefully it distracts her down for a bit.

_ Though I’m out of knives, now.  _

In the meantime, my partner has set up a pair of explosive traps where we’ve passed through, hoping to stall her a little longer.

An idea comes to mind. “Setsuna, hand me a campfire scroll?” 

Without a word, she throws one to me. I might be able to combine the flames with my wind element to create a distraction later on. 

“A lake, too, actually.” She hands it over, and I clip both to my belt. Tilting my head to signal her, we begin running again, using qi to empower our muscles to move faster. 

A few seconds later, the pair of explosive tags go off. Wordlessly, Setsuna drops another pair of traps behind us, then we abruptly split up as a spike of qi goes off behind us. 

It’s just in time, as Mari comes rocketing through into the area, skidding to a stop on a trail of lightning—

And promptly gets launched flying forward as Setsuna triggers the explosives, although the Storm User is protected by her qi cloak.

Setsuna rejoins me, hurling another set of traps at the last place we’ve seen her before we cut into a different direction entirely. 

“This isn’t working.” I say, gritting my teeth. “We can’t cover enough ground to get far enough out of her sight to force her to actually track us. She’s too damn fast.” 

“Then perhaps we need to try something else?” Setsuna asks. “Like creating a big enough distraction for her to lose track of us?” We pull into a clearing, and I signal for her to stop.

“Might be the only way.” I admit, channeling qi to my free hand as I pull out the campfire scroll. 

“Scorched earth?” She questions.

“Yup. Use both.” 

She unseals her second one without hesitation, pulling out a large ceramic jar of something else, as well. 

“Flammable oils.” 

“Package it.” I direct her, and she nods, sealing it into the containment scroll.

Containment scrolls allow sealing scrolls to be fired at high speed — for example, if you prepare a high-capacity explosive to use to break down a wall, but you can’t get close to the wall, you would seal it into a containment scroll. Then you could use a mechanism or technique to fire it at the wall. Upon contact, it will trigger the seal inside — creating the explosion, at a safe distance. They’re a bit hard to create, but offer a ton of versatility in exchange. 

“Alright, ready. Velocity trigger applied, as well.” 

I unseal my own campfire seal — it took me rather longer than it did Setsuna — and soon we have two very serviceable fires going in front of us. 

Then I close my eyes — good thing I had already shifted to my wind aspect, expecting to need to run.

_ This’ll be a bit of a complicated one. _

_ Set the shape of the spell. Wind. Condense. Release. _

I blow oxygen-heavy wind directly at the flames, fanning the fire. 

If I hadn’t been facing the way we’d come from, Mari would have blindsided me entirely — instead, I’m barely able to roll out of the way as she charges, although she manages to score a light electrical burn across the side of my arm.

Setsuna, a little more aware, hurls the containment scroll and pops the velocity trigger, sending the whole package blasting through the fire and towards Mari, who gets nailed square in the chest. Flaming oils splatter everywhere, sticking to her Storm Cloak for the most part, but burning merrily all the same. 

“Gah! What the fuck is this shit?!” She flexes her aura in an attempt to shake it off, which only succeeds in spreading it more. 

Utilizing my energy as I back away, I succeed in blasting the flames even higher as Setsuna uses a velocity seal to send a wooden shield blazing towards our opponent, who manages to deflect it. 

I catch Setsuna’s eye.  _ Time to go. _

Without hesitation, the sealer triggers the dozen explosives she’s dropped in the area, sending flaming debris everywhere and filling the clearing with even more smoke.

I begin transferring my aspect to Fire as we start fleeing the area. It’s a newer one, relatively speaking, and entirely opposite of my affinity, so it’ll take me a minute. Until I do, though, I’m going to be pretty defenseless. All of the mess we’ve created should buy us some time, though.

_ No, wait! We should make use of the flames we already have! _

__

I cancel my aspect change — good thing I’ve just started, since it’ll take me a moment to clean the Fire out — as Setsuna holds up a scroll for me to glance at. I’m able to recognize some of the basic elements on it — it looks like a fire-sealed scroll. Hm…

_ She must have grabbed some on the run. Gods, did she print a seal for that while moving?  _

“Quick thinking.” I compliment her. “I’m not sure if it’ll work twice, but…you wouldn’t happen to have any more of that oil, would you?”

She shakes her head. “Didn’t know if it would work. Was supposed to test it later, but it worked fine. It’s sticky, which will be very effective on those opponents without the kind of aura that she does.” 

I click my tongue. Mari’s qi cloak allows her to ignore the fire, but it’ll definitely burn through her power, and it’s one hell of a distraction. Plus, all the smoke and fire will make it harder for her to track us visually and by scent, if she has any abilities that help with the latter.

The conditions of the test are baiting me into sacrificing Setsuna, but…my own reservations aside, if I were to do that, Mari would most definitely take me down. So, unless sacrificing Setsuna would also definitely take out Mari, there’s no way I’ll be considering that. 

_ I need to look at this from a different angle. We don’t have to beat her, just hide.  _

Glancing behind us, I note that sizable forest fire has started, covering at least a few hundred square meters worth of foliage and very rapidly spreading. 

“Setsuna, we might be approaching this the wrong way. What’s the one place she wouldn’t think to find us?”

Her eyes widen. Wordlessly, we both turn back the way we’ve come, aiming to head back into the flames.

It isn’t too hard to handle the fire with careful and delicate application of qi armor or outright avoidance, although we’re forced to hold our breath and reinforce our eyes for the intense smoke. Setsuna uses a trio of explosives, setting them off one after the other. The first and the last are decoys, thrown farther away from us. The second one, on the other hand, is used to blast a hole into the ground.

We jump in. Setsuna uses a sealed qi barrier to lock the top in place, spreading the remainder of her fire-seals just before she does in order to further camouflage our position. I use water tinted with my Ice affinity in order to keep us cool, then shift my aspect to my weak Earth element, using it to shift the earth over our wall. A small window is kept open so that we have some ability to see outside. After that, we suppress our qi as much as is safe and wait, sitting diligently on guard.

Two minutes or so pass before Setsuna starts running low on qi — keeping the integrity of the wall up against the constant damage from the fire wears quickly on her already miniscule reserves. To compensate for this, I press my hands against her back and begin transferring my own qi over in an improvised medical technique. 

And it’s like this that we pass the rest of the time, sitting quietly and alertly. Explosions and thunder goes off in the distance, proof of Mari’s continued search, but she’s not quite able to find us. There’s a bit of alarm when a massive technique goes off, blowing a lot of the smoke and flames out. Setsuna deactivates her wall at that point to hide any accidental light, and I take over maintaining the wall with my Earth affinity, using the absolute minimum amount of qi to avoid detection.

Eventually, the clock runs down to six. Once it does, I carefully pull the earth enclosing us away, and we stand up out of our little bunker.

“She…doesn’t really know how to hold back, does she?” I ask. 

It’s true that we leveled a fair amount of the forest with our pyromania, but…there’s a lot of surrounding area that’s been completely brutalized, as well. Glancing around, I note that a fairly deep crater that hadn’t been caused by either of us is only about ten meters off from our position.

_ That would’ve been bad. _

It seems like our handler didn’t let the fire go too far out of control, but even so…the surrounding…hundred meters in every direction or so has been absolutely decimated. 

“The  _ cleaners _ are going to have a hard time fixing this.” Setsuna murmurs.

“Good. It’s been a while since they’ve changed up the place. It’s about time we got some new scenery in here.” Our instructor appears next to us, clearly having exited a high-speed movement. “That was unorthodox, but an excellent use of your skills where both of you were able to make yourself relevant and hide against a superior opponent with pretty basic tricks, all in all. Granted, she didn’t have much in the way of sensing, so don’t get lax, either.”

“Understood, sir.” We salute.

With a thunderous sound, Mari bursts into the clearing in a blur, catching up to us within seconds. And she looks pretty unhappy. 

“Where the fuck—“ 

“Underground.” I reply. She blinks, shocked.

“I…I’m going to need to hear this explanation after.” 

“Sure.” 

There’s little point in hiding what we’ve done from her.

“You had some good ideas, Mari. Blowing the smoke out was definitely a smart one, but you didn’t check the place thoroughly enough. Dismissing the fire as a place they could have hidden was a mistake, because that’s exactly where they went.” 

_ “Wait, what the fu—“ _

“While you’ll be able to rely on your teammates for both stealth and perception, you should pick up the basics of it yourself so that you aren’t useless in a similar situation like this. They used nothing particularly complicated, but managed to create a situation where you couldn’t have found them no matter how long they had to hide.” 

Mari begrudgingly accepts the advice. It  _ is _ sound, after all. 

“Stealth aside, Setsuna and Yuki, you two need to desperately work on your physical conditioning. It’s not bad for where your skill level is, but against a decent opponent, you’ll get destroyed. If I hadn’t stalled Mari, neither of you would have made it into the forest to begin with.” 

I nod. It’s something I’ve known and have been working on, but I can only progress so much by myself. 

“To be frank, so long as you focus on utility — healing and sealing, respectively — you are going to struggle against opponents like Mari, who have levels of power that render a lot of it useless. Healing is rendered ineffective against an opponent who will blow you apart in one hit, and many traps get negated through sufficient defenses, as you two found out. Additionally, if there’s enough of a significant qi level difference, you won’t be able to affect them with direct seals at all. You need to  _ work _ on your qi capacity and intensity if you want to fix that.” 

Setsuna nods thoughtfully. Not about the advice, which was  _ mostly _ known, but about her little…qi problem. Currently, she uses seals to pull ambient qi from the air and stores it with seals engraved on her bones. 

_ Perhaps we should also work on traps designed to work against people who are especially stronger than us.  _

The obvious answer: poison. Poisons are something  _ I  _ should get into, actually, with my medical expertise. And, actually…wouldn’t  _ Setsuna _ be a good option to pick up poison, too? Qi-less, but adds immediate lethality to her kit.

Hm…

There’s some potential there. I’ll definitely have to look into it, but…

I frown. “Hey, what’s your name? We’ve introduced ourselves to you, but you haven’t introduced yourself to us.” 

He smirks. “It’s about time you noticed. That’ll be your homework assignment for today. Compile a report on everything you can find out about me. Due at eight in the morning tomorrow.” 

_ Fourteen hours. Well, if I ask the person I know…it shouldn’t take me more than two. _

“Any rules?” Mari asks.

“The usual. Don’t go hurting anyone. Don’t get caught doing anything illegal. I’ll be guarding my residence, so if you manage to get past me, well…you’ll be able to ransack that. Good luck trying that, though.” He says, snorting.

“You’re all dismissed. Be sure to get a lot of sleep, as you’ll have a full day of work tomorrow. I’ll be  _ anticipating  _ visitors, so by all means…” His eyes glitter. “Try your best.” 

“Oh, and Yuki? I know you’re in contact with someone who  _ would _ know me, and I know you know who she is. You — and I mean you three, as a team — are not allowed to use her as a resource at all for this.”

_ Huh? Is he talking about…Hikaru? Just what was their relationship? _

Mari sends me a curious look. I shake my head —  _ not now  _ — and she seems to get the message. He leaps away without another word, quickly enough to be nearly impossible to track. And of course, wherever he’s gone is probably the completely opposite direction of where his residence actually is.

“Hey, do you guys mind eating first?” Mari asks, rubbing her stomach. “Although you two apparently sat there and did nothing for the better part of two hours, I was running around throwing shit the whole time. I’m out of gas.” 

“Sure.” We both agree readily. 

“Fuck yeah! You both eat meat? No weird tastes, right?” 

I glance at Setsuna, who shrugs.

“We’ll eat anything within reason.” I reply. 

“Sweet! I know a good barbeque place, and I’ve been looking for people to take there. Super cheap, but it tastes great! I’m sure you’ll love it. Here, it’s this way.” She darts off, although not so fast that we can’t easily catch up.

Shrugging, we follow after her.

  
  



	14. (2.1.4) Spark, Part 4

#  **2.1.4 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Spark, Part 4**

The place Mari takes us to winds up being a homely, hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Upon stepping through the glass doors, she waves to the server, who looks genuinely happy to see her. They exchange some pleasantries before we’re seated at a booth in the corner.

“Order up!” Mari says cheerfully. “My treat!”

“Thanks!” I reply, Setsuna following suit shortly. 

I pick up a menu and leaf through it. It looks to be pretty standard fare for the most part — wait. I double check the prices. 

_This isn’t that cheap._

Setsuna seems to have noticed too, sending me an inquiring glance with a significant look at the menu. I shrug in response. It’s not so much that I’d refuse to spend the money, but it’s more than I thought it’d be, with the description of ‘super cheap’. Mari’s an orphan, so if this is a low price for her, then how exactly did she get the money? Or is there some other explanation for this?

Either way, it’s no problem in the end. I find a few selections that look particularly interesting, and we place our orders. 

“What do you guys know about our handler so far?” I start the topic. “Speculation is welcome, too. I have a few ideas of my own, but…” 

“The minimum requirement to be a handler is seventh-star rank plus a successful apprentice. That should narrow down our pool to maybe two hundred people, tops? I’m not too sure on the number there.” Mari bites her lip, thinking.

_I hadn’t known that additional bit about the apprentice. That’s useful knowledge._

“So he has to be within that pool? Are there any exceptions to the rule?” I ask.

“Ninth-star ninja.” Setsuna murmurs.

“Ah, that’s true. But, I don’t think he’s any of them. There’s only a bit more than three dozen of them, and I’ve committed their faces to memory. None of them wear a mask.” I reply. 

Mari nods. “Okay, so it’s safe to close them out. But still, there’s a pool of almost two hundred that we’ll have to narrow down.”

“No. Closer to a hundred.” Setsuna notes. “He’s a male.” 

_In other words, we can eliminate all of the females._

“Assuming the gender distribution of potential handlers is 50-50, yes. That might be a poor assumption, but, either way, we’ve narrowed down the numbers some.” I say.

“Grey hair.” Setsuna muses. “It’s not a shade most people would use. In fact, that kind of thing is fairly unusual around here.”

I see what she’s getting at. “So in other words, it’s a fairly safe assumption to assume that it is his natural or normal hair color, and that we can use it to try identifying him?” 

_To avoid standing out, a ninja would typically use a generic hair color. Usually, they wouldn’t dye their hair an exotic color._

She nods. “We might have to revisit that guess, since he could have simply dyed his hair for the purposes of this assignment, but if it’s true, we’ve cut the eligible number of ninja down to a handful.” 

“Ah!” Mari jumps. “Something I know that you don’t, but — this guy is built like a fucking tank, beyond with what you can see. He let me hit him head on with one of my strongest piercers and it didn’t even phase him.” 

I blink. That’s…based on Mari’s raw power, even if she’s still developing, that’s…

“Was it a melee piercer?” Setsuna asks. Mari nods. 

“I hit him with everything I had, and it broke my hand and arm. But he healed it after. That’s why it took so long for me to get to you guys. He definitely didn’t dodge, and it didn’t feel like he channeled anything either.”

“He blocked you with nothing more than inherent qi resistance and his own body?” I ask, astonished. I don’t have a full understanding of Mari’s power, but I’ve _felt_ a weak application of her Storm qi. It blew through my inherent Ice resistances and broke my ribs. I have fairly solid defenses even not considering that I’m just a first-star…well, second-star now. 

For someone to shrug off a full-power _piercer_ from her with nothing more than…that kind of thing is beyond unreasonable…

“Earth-natured or, much more likely, a defensive aberration.” Setsuna speculates. “That shouldn’t be normally possible.” 

I’d forgotten, but Setsuna herself is also quite sensitive to qi, on a level far succeeding mine. It comes with the life of not having access to her natural qi, but having touched and manipulated ambient energy. So she’d know even better than I what Mari could be potentially capable of. 

And if even _Setsuna_ thinks that…

“Believe me, I know.” Mari says, grimacing. “I know well enough of what I’m capable of, and if I had hit any other person, they would have been splattered across the ground _,_ qi resistance or not.” 

“Could you explain how your technique works?” I ask. “It might be helpful to narrowing down what exactly his affinity or aberration is.” 

“Sure. Basically, what I do is channel my Storm qi into my fist and both of my legs. After that, it’s just a charging punch with all of my strength. It isn’t complicated in the slightest, but it’s stupidly powerful because of how much energy I’m able to gather.” 

Piercer-type techniques are designed to come out fast to penetrate armor or other types of reinforcement. Otherwise, their purpose is lost, as the opponent will just dodge, which is an issue considering the qi-heavy nature of piercers. 

“To clarify, without the Storm qi, this would just be a strong punch, right?” I ask. 

“Yes.” She admits. Well, that makes things simple—

“Something negated the Storm qi.” Setsuna concludes. 

_It’s the only thing I can think of._

“What could that be, though…?” I wonder. 

Surprisingly, even Mari doesn’t know the answer to this one. We’re forced to leave this train of thought aside for now, but it has brought some interesting insights. 

“Eh? Where did you get a paper and pencil from?” The red-eyed girl asks, staring at Setsuna. The latter just smiles secretively, but doesn’t comment. 

“So we’re almost positive that he’s at least a seventh-star. He’s almost certainly had an apprentice. His natural hair color, or at least the hair people recognize him by, is probably grey. He’s extremely tough and likely has an aberration of some kind that gives him immense defensive capabilities.” 

Mari looks thoughtful. 

“…No, I don’t think that’s right.” She murmurs uncharacteristically. “I think he’s at least an eighth-star. My Storm aberration…it’s extremely powerful. As in, I could kill someone on accident in a spar if I don’t carefully regulate my qi. I don’t think that I’d be placed with a handler who couldn’t handle it. So I think you’re definitely right in saying that our handler also has an aberration that counters mine.”

I close my eyes, mulling over her words in my head.

_I could kill someone on accident._

_With the look on her face…has it happened before? I wonder…_

“I think you’re right.” I say, going with my instinct. “They’re still assumptions, but I don’t think they’re wrong. So, at least an eighth-star with an aberration that counters Storm, huh? That does narrow it down a bit more.” 

My eyes widen. His persona. The strange feeling I got from him. 

_Dangerous._

_What if…?_

Our food arrives, dragging Mari’s attention away from our analysis. It’s fine to take a break, I think. I’ll be able to revisit the topic after I eat some, and approach it with a fresh outlook. Perhaps it’ll let me figure out something I’ve missed. 

“That is the wrong kind of look to be eating this kind of food with.” Mari says, jabbing a fork in my direction. “Look, even Setsuna’s enjoying it!” 

I glance at the girl in question. She does have a faint smile on her face as she chews on one of the kebabs. Guiltily, I realize that I’ve been eating on autopilot. The next time I take a bite, I stop and pay attention to the flavors. Salty, mostly, but all the flavor of the meat has been expertly retained. A ninja’s type of food, to be certain. 

“This is quite good.” I say. Mari grins as if she’s cooked the meal herself. 

“Isn’t it?! I come here almost every day!” She begins eating in earnest, food disappearing rapidly into her mouth.

Setsuna and I share a look. _‘Just how much money does this girl have to spend it so rapidly?’_

The next few minutes are quiet as we all focus on eating. Eventually, though, Mari breaks the silence.

“So. That training exercise. How’d you do it?” She asks, swallowing another piece of meat. 

I briefly overview our actions and the trains of thought that led us to doing so. She nods thoughtfully once I finish my story.

“To be honest, I had dismissed your Earth and Fire aspects when you said you specialized in Wind and Water. Most people don’t generalize out like that…well, it’s that or you have really good control.” Mari says.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well, most ninja tend to overspecialize in one particular element because you get the most returns from doing so. For example, I have Wind and Fire affinities thanks to my Storm affinity, but my skillset consists almost entirely of Storm techniques, and it’s what my fighting style revolves around. Besides getting more out of an element by focusing on just one, you also don’t suffer from the issues of using different affinities in combat; namely, _aspect shifting.”_

“That’s not wrong, usually.” I reply. “But I like to have a broader control over qi as a whole. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’ll become a competent Fire or Earth User. But, for example, any half-decent Water User can breathe underwater, an immensely useful skill. Go far enough into Fire and you have substantial heat resistances. Earth, and you can move underground with ease. Wind, and you can make clean, traceless cuts and change the path of projectiles.” 

_Well, that’s all well and good, but it isn’t the primary reason I learned all of that._

“I see your point.” Mari muses, pausing briefly to take another bite. “But qi control is hard enough for me as is. It’d take a pretty long time…three years, maybe, just to _awaken_ the other two. They’re counter-elements, too, although Water wouldn’t be too bad.” 

“Ah.” I blink. “Well, it took me about one and a half for all four, excluding my original Awakening.”

“That’s just not fair.” She mutters. “It took me roughly that long just to get Fire out.” 

Setsuna shoots her a sharp look. For someone who has no affinity at all, it’s probably painful to hear someone with a powerful aberration talking about _fairness._

“That’s life. You just have to do the best with what you’re given.” I say, glancing at Setsuna. She nods. 

“Well, that’s true.” Mari agrees. “Do you guys want seconds?” 

“No thanks.” Setsuna and I reply. She shrugs.

“Suit yourself.” The Storm user says, flagging down a server and ordering another round of meat before turning back to us.

“Let’s talk about something else for now. We’re going to be working together a lot from now on, so I want to know more about you.” 

I blink. Is she trying to make…small talk? 

“Such as…?” Setsuna questions.

“What do you guys do for fun?” 

_…For fun?_

Setsuna looks bewildered. In truth, I’m having just as much trouble as she is.

“I…read?” She eventually volunteers. 

“Read about what?”

“Seals.” 

Mari facepalms. 

“I mean, besides things related to being a ninja.” She clarifies.

“I…I think you’re going to have to give us an example.” I admit. 

“You’re joking.” Mari says flatly. I blink.

“ _You’re not joking?!_ ” She exclaims. “Well…some of the things I do for fun…I like to shop and eat. It’s fun to explore the village and look for things I haven’t tried out, and find things that are new and interesting. I also like to clean, actually. It’s a good way to wind down physically and mentally.” 

_So…recreational events…?_

I try to come up with something, and roll a blank. Setsuna seems to be doing about the same.

The red-eyed girl groans. “Remind me to take you two out. You guys need to pick up a hobby.” 

I’m not too sure why we need one, but it’ll be a good team bonding event. So I readily agree, Setsuna following up shortly as she scribbles something on her notepad.

“Anyways, back to the discussion at hand.” I say. “We now have a decent profile to identify him with. So now we have to figure out methods.” 

“We should find his place of residence and his apprentice.” Setsuna offers without looking up from her writing. “Both of those are pretty basic information, and once we find out who he is the latter shouldn’t be too hard, either.”

“Assuming his apprentice is still alive.” Mari notes. 

_Good point._

“We could find a lot of basic information on him at the hospital, once we figure out who he is, right?” Mari offers.

“Not as much as you might think.” I reply. “Hospital records are sealed.” 

“If the person who has trained him is still alive, they should also be a pretty high ranking.” Setsuna suggests. 

“Not necessarily. You can have an apprentice once you hit fifth-star. A possible situation is that a fifth-star took him on, they died, and he progressed on his own.” The Storm User interjects.

I frown. It’s true that you could do such a thing, reach the upper tiers without an instructor, but there aren’t that many people who _could._ It’s usually a great deal slower to do that. Most people would hunt down someone to pick them up as an apprentice.

But it’s not impossible — given the mortality rates of ninja, it isn’t even implausible. And, if we’re correct in assuming that he has an aberration, it shouldn’t have been too hard to get an apprenticeship. In which case…it would still be plausible for Mari’s hypothetical situation to have occurred. Damn it.

“Actually, that’s a good path to look into. It might give us a hint as to how old he is.” I say. 

_We don’t actually know his age. He could be anywhere from his 20s to…it’d be a long-shot, but he could even be as old as 60. We don’t know for sure._

“I think we’ve hit the point where we just have to go out and investigate for ourselves.” Mari concludes, swallowing the last of her food. 

“I agree.” I take the opportunity to stretch. “I was thinking about where we should start, but didn’t come up with anything good. What I did decide, though, is that we should investigate as a group.” They both send me questioning looks.

“Yeah, it sounds strange, but the people most likely to have any idea about this guy is _other ninja._ They’ll definitely be suspicious of an individual asking about one of their comrades. We _could_ claim to be apprentices, but getting caught in a lie would be _bad._ So, even though it’ll be slower, we’ll be more likely to get useful information.”

They both readily agree as the server comes over with the bill and receipt. Mari pulls out her wallet, pulls out some money, and slides it in. 

I stare at them, running the math in my head. 

_That’s definitely not enough. That wouldn’t even cover a quarter of it. Should I say something here?_

Setsuna notices as well, but when she sees that I’m not saying anything, she elects to stay silent as well. The server smiles, takes the money, and departs into the back room. 

_She definitely saw how much Mari put in there, and was okay with it? Well, if she pays that little, proportionately, then no wonder she comes here all the time. That amount…we ate probably around six people’s worth of food, but barely paid more than the price of_ one _person’s meal!_

“Time to go! That was a great meal.” Mari bounces up, clapping. We stand up as well, and follow her outside. “I can’t wait to come here during my free time. You guys enjoyed it too, right?”

_The food was excellent, and with these prices — well, I guess we’d have to pay full price. But even with that—_

“It was amazing. I’ll probably come here on my own, too, if I feel hungry.” I reply. Setsuna nods firmly. 

The red-eyed girl grins. “I’m glad you guys agree with me! It’s such an awesome place. Let’s go together, then.”

I can’t help but crack a small smile at her enthusiasm. Her love for the place is clear, and it seems like they like her a lot, too. It must be a discount of some kind. There’s probably a story behind that, but…

_Huh. This is about as far away as you can get from first impressions, huh?_

“Well, let’s go wander around!” Mari says. “Unless you guys have come up with a good starting point to search from?” 

I shake my head. I can’t think of any safe assumptions to make…even our initial profile of him is riddled with assumptions. 

“So we’re just going to look for ninja on the street, targeting those who are higher-level, and ask about him?” I ask. 

“I drew a picture.” Setsuna says, holding up her pad. My eyes widen. 

It’s a pretty well-drawn black-and-white drawing of our handler, with pertinent details such as the shade of his hair and skin tone marked with small captions. Below the drawing, the assumptions we’ve made are listed in neat bullet-point. I’m a little astonished, to be honest — I hadn’t known that she had any talent at all with drawing. It must come with her sealwork. 

“Wow, that’s good.” Mari compliments her, leaning in to examine it. “See, that’s a hobby you could pick up.”

“…Drawing profiles…?” Setsuna questions. I snort.

“She means recreational drawing.” I clarify. 

“Oh.” She says, a little uncertainly. 

“I’ll show you later.” I say. She nods. 

We have a bit more than twelve hours left. Plenty of time, but there’s a lot of information we have to look into — and, of course, we need to leave some time to sleep and prepare ourselves. I’m positive that he’s going to push us extra hard tomorrow, so we’ve got to be ready for that.

If we dedicate seven hours, a pretty generous amount of time, to sleeping and preparation, that leaves us with about five. So that’s our tentative time limit for now. We don’t have to go overboard with the report, but we definitely need much more than we have now.

“Step one is to find his name. That’ll make investigation a ton easier.” I say. 

_It’s also the hardest. We’re going to need to get lucky here to find someone who recognizes him. It shouldn’t be too hard, should it?_

_…_

As it turns out, it _was_ hard. Our typical conversation went something like this:

“Good evening, sir! We were wondering if you recognized this person? He should be at least an eighth-star ninja, and he’s our handler. We had some questions to ask him, so we were wondering if you knew anything that could help us find him?” 

That opening setup took a few trials to perfect. 

But, without fail: 

“Sorry, I don’t recognize him.” 

Two hours went by in this manner. Identifying high-level ninja wasn’t too hard; Setsuna’s active qi detection is sensitive enough for her to pick out those with particularly intense qi auras. It wasn’t perfect; for example, most of the best sharply suppress their true levels. But it was more accurate than random selection, so…

Approaching them was a bit more challenging. Some people turned us down without giving us the time to say anything, but it wouldn’t have been a good idea to push them, so we had no choice but to let them go.

We start cutting through an alley to get to the next street, a little dispirited. Setsuna shifts uneasily, perhaps dispirited by the lack of progress.

“I don’t understand.” Mari complains, after we go through the twentieth person. “How doesn’t anyone know this guy?” 

“Know who?” A voice calls out from behind us. We turn around, startled, as a man slinks from the shadows behind us. Instinctively, Setsuna and I tense up as Mari’s eye goes electric blue.

_This…this isn’t good. Setsuna was actively scanning for high-level ninja, but this guy managed to sneak right past her. I can’t feel anything at all from this guy. How…what level is he?_

  
  



	15. (2.1.5) Spark, Part 5

#  **2.1.5 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Spark, Part 5**

It’s hard to tell, but it looks like this man is a ninja, based on his tense stance. His qi aura, too, makes it obvious — he isn’t particularly trying to hide it now that he’s revealed himself. He’s rather tall, perhaps around our handler’s height. Dark brown eyes and black hair, with a dark coat that conceals his frame well…but I still get the feel of a close-combat specialist from him…

“Oh, relax. I’m not here to fight you. Although I should let you know that the night patrol is paying attention to you, so to speak. You’re acting rather strangely.” He says. 

“Well, we really do just want to figure out who our handler is.” I reply, bowing, as I contemplate my next words.

_ Better commit. The trouble this could cause is worse than the potential loss, if he decides we ought to be brought in for questioning. It was the correct call to look as a team, though. I have no doubt that we would have been rounded up had we gone separately.  _

“He gave us an assignment to investigate him. But so far, no one has been able to recognize him.” I explain. At my prompting, Setsuna flips over her notepad so the man can see him. 

“Haha…hahahaha!” He bursts out into laughter. “That old man’s still playing his tricks, I see.” 

_ That’s a hit! _

“You recognize him?!” Mari asks, excited.

He smirks. “Most people would.”

_ …Would?  _

It’s a minor detail, but — why am I focusing on it so much? It…it feels like a strange way to phrase this. ‘Most people would’? Why not something like…just saying ‘yes’? 

_ Most people would. _

_ Would. _

_ Implying that— _

_ Oh hell, I’m a complete idiot. _

“The mask.” I say, facepalming. “I’m an idiot for not recognizing it earlier. It takes virtually no effort for him to keep it on in the short time he interacted with us, but it completely screwed up our entire physical description of him. A mask is an incredibly distinctive feature. It was beyond improbable that we would go through so many people without anyone recognizing him.”

The man nods. “Correct. During my run of this examination, he’d changed his hair color to pink. We didn’t know until after.” 

I wince at the story, before my brain seizes onto something he’s said.

“He’s had multiple teams, then? Or perhaps multiple apprentices?” Setsuna analyzes calmly. “You said  _ we. _ ” 

“Correct.” He nods. “As a bonus, I’ll give you some information for free. It’ll come with a catch, of course, because I have no intention of letting you skip over the hardest parts of this assignment. It’ll be one truth, one partial truth, and two lies. Of course, I won’t tell you which is which. That’s up to you to find out.” 

A puzzle, then?

“I’ll accept that. Thank you.” I reply.

“Alright, here goes. He freelances a lot in the hospital as a healer. His real name is Takeshi Katsuo. I used to be one of his students. He lives on the north side of town.”

“Thank you.” Mari interrupts. “That’ll be extremely useful.” 

_ There’s a sort of satisfaction in her voice. Has she already…?  _

He glances at her. “That is an  _ interesting  _ qi aura you’re emitting. I’m curious to see how you’ll perform in the upcoming fifth-star examinations.” 

She stiffens. “Thank you…sir.” 

“With that said, have an exciting evening. Good luck.” He departs into the shadows…and I lose track of him within moments. 

“How…how did he know you were a fourth-star?” Setsuna asks. 

“I don’t know.” Mari says slowly, eyes narrowed. It’s with a start that I realize her iris is still blue, evidence of her channeling her Storm qi. “I’m…not sure about this guy. But I do know what the two lies were.” 

“How?” I ask. “I couldn’t think of anything that we could immediately eliminate without going to the hospital first.” 

She smirks. “When I channel Storm qi, I am much more sensitive to the electricity around me. It’s not a skill I’ve practiced much yet, so I couldn’t use it to find you two underground, but I was able to read his heartbeat when he was talking.” 

Oh…! 

“The two lies were that he freelances in the hospital, and that he lives on the North side of the village.” Mari states confidently.

I close my eyes. “The partial truth is most likely ‘I used to be his student’. It’d still be true, but misleading, if  _ he still was his student.  _ There’s a good chance that he’s an apprentice now, but was formerly on a team…”

_ That may be interesting to look up later. _

“So his name is Takeshi Katsuo.” Setsuna murmurs, writing the name down on the pad. 

I grin. “That was an unexpectedly useful diversion, in more ways than one. There’s one other thing I learned, besides the raw information we were given there. Or, well, learned isn’t the best word. I knew this was a possibility from the start, but hadn’t seriously considered it until just now. But this  _ chance _ encounter has basically proven it.” 

“ _ Takeshi Katsuo, you’ve been watching us this entire time, haven’t you? _ ” 

“Very good.” A voice — Katsuo’s voice — says. “Care to enlighten me to your train of thought, there?” He jumps down from…to be honest, I’m not too sure where he was hiding. That exclamation was a blind guess, even if there was good conditional evidence to support it. 

“Sure. What got me thinking about it was the way that guy — led us to a conclusion without actually overtly saying anything at all. I realized that your mask was just something you had put on to screw with us because of his phrasing. So I thought back to the things you’ve been saying, especially since you like to be tricky with your words and imply all sorts of shit.”

“And one of the things that stood out was how much you warned us that you’d be staying at your house. I thought that was strange at the time, but didn’t think much of it. But now that I think of it…why would you be even a little concerned that we would find your house, out of the thousands elsewhere? There simply wasn’t any good way for us to reasonably come across it in the span of just one night.”

“But, mainly, I’ve been thinking. You’re an experienced teacher, with multiple teams. So you definitely know how to teach. But you’re super indirect about it. I think you knew from the start that Mari and I would clash, and that’s why you were there to watch the fight. While you never  _ said _ it, it was obvious you had been spectating. Part of it was to keep things from getting out of hand, but you were also analyzing our skills and roles in the team. So…why would you stay at your house during this assignment? Why send us on this mission if you  _ wouldn’t _ be analyzing how the team was working in this kind of situation? It’s true that this project imparts valuable investigative skills, but you also wanted to study our team dynamics more, right? You can’t do that if you aren’t watching.”

“Finally, if we look at the arrival of that man — it’s just too suspicious. After two hours of failure, someone comes up who just happens to know you even with the mask you’re wearing, an appearance unfamiliar to most — someone who happened to be your student, who took the same exact test — and is willing to help us, but only through mostly very subtle clues and hints? That could be a coincidence, but when there’s also a compelling  _ motive…” _

“This was just another test to see our overall team dynamics, wasn’t it?” I conclude. “Sorry, that was a really long explanation for something that was honestly pretty obvious in hindsight, but…”

“Close, but not quite.” He says. “It’s true that I did want to see how you guys worked together, but it was a little more nuanced than that. And, to be clear, if you hadn’t clued in onto this part of the examination, I wouldn’t have had a problem. Investigation is a critical part of the ninja toolkit and I was curious to see how you’d go about it. But, in terms of dynamics? Specifically, I wanted to see whether or not  _ Mari _ fit in with you two.” 

“Huh?” Mari asks.

“You two—“ He gestures to Setsuna and I, “—have been effectively partners for multiple years, and it shows. There were no plans to separate you two — even if there would have been others that would have been better fits for either one of you. Aside from that, you two are one of the top graduates, and you’ve also both been gauged as having massive room for potential growth, especially Setsuna. So you were paired with someone who was  _ well _ beyond the typical strength of a graduate, in part to protect you, but also mainly to spur you to grow faster. So Mari was a good fit for you. However, none of that would have mattered if Mari couldn’t fit into the relationship you two had already established.” 

I close my eyes, thinking about his words. 

“A-And?” Mari says, uncharacteristically nervous. “What did you decide?”

“It went better than we could have possibly expected.” He says simply. “The biggest concern we had was a clash between leadership. We weren’t sure if you would force yourself into the leadership role…a role that Yuki naturally falls into. And if you had, would  _ Setsuna  _ accept that?”

Well, that confirms my previous guess. Our earlier fight had been completely anticipated. But there’s something…strange…

“But since Mari decided to accept Yuki as a leader, that problem was averted, wasn’t it?” Setsuna asks.

“Correct.” 

Ah, that’s what concerns me so much.

_ ‘You’ve also both been gauged as having massive room for potential growth.’  _

Setsuna, I understand. But me? I haven’t revealed much outside of a decent Wind and Water affinity and healing. It’s true that they could be looking at me holistically, from a full perspective that includes my leadership and analytical ability, but there’s a far more simpler explanation, and a chilling one.

_ Do they know about my Ice aberration? _

Unlike most other aberrations, it’s  _ hard _ to detect an Ice user. Just like it would be hard to detect someone with an aberration such as Steel. This is true for most material-type aberrations — unlike Lightning or Storm, which is closer to a  _ manifested aberration.  _ It doesn’t readily show in my aura unless I am actively channeling it, and would bypass most normal scans. And, by focusing so much on my Wind affinity, it makes it even harder to detect the Ice aspect of me. 

And on top of all of that, I’ve further obscured my Ice affinity by developing a quadruple affinity. Hikaru herself told me that I had reached the point where no one could identify my Ice affinity even with a deep scan unless I wasn’t suppressing it, which I am just about all the time.

So they shouldn’t know about my Ice affinity. Right? 

_ Is…is that a warning? _

“Well, it’s about time for you all to sleep. You can disregard the investigation; you’ve done a decent job as is, even if it was simplistic, and I’ve no doubt that you three could carry it forth with ease if I left you to your own devices. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know later on. Get some sleep and be ready for a hard day tomorrow…be ready at eight.” He turns away, apparently electing to head home himself, when a bolt of lightning strikes him in the shoulder.

_ Wha—  _

I immediately spin to face Mari, the generator of the attack. A moment later, an incredibly  _ dark  _ presence fills the alley, and I’m able to recognize it as  _ killing intent.  _ It sets me on edge, but washes off my emotional shields — Setsuna and Mari, on the other hand, look completely paralyzed. 

“I hope that had some purpose to it.” Our handler says in an icy-cold voice, still facing away from us.

“I’m extremely sorry about that, sir.” The Storm user responds contritely. “I just wanted to test something, but now I’m pretty sure — your  _ aberration _ is Steel, isn’t it?” 

_ Oh! She wanted to confirm that his passive defense negated her attack. That was a  _ hell _ of a risky way to do it, but…! _

The darkness fades. 

“Correct.” He says, a little humor in his voice. “You could have just asked, but yes, my aberration is Steel.” 

“Oh.”

Without another word, he leaves, vanishing into the darkness. Mari collapses to her knees, trembling. 

“That was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen anyone do.” I say flatly. 

“Y-Yeah…in hindsight, that probably…probably wasn’t a good idea.” She replies, looking a little shaken. 

I sigh. “Well, there’s nothing to be said about it now. He didn’t seem too mad, that burst of intent aside, so you’ll be okay. I think.” 

She slowly gets to her feet. “Thanks for the…encouragement…? Well, either way, it’s about time we all head out, then. Where do you guys live?” 

Setsuna recites our address. Mari’s eyes light up.

“Hey! We’re neighbors, then! And, wait, do you two live together too?” 

_ That’s a pretty big coincidence.  _

“Yes.” Setsuna answers simply. 

Mari’s eyes glitter. “Ah, living with a boy your age? That must be so very exciting!” 

_ ‘What?’  _ That’s the expression on Setsuna’s face right now, and I’m sure it’s mirrored on my own, too. Mari just shakes her head in disapproval.

“You two have so much to learn. Anyways, let’s head back together, then!” 

The run back is silent, but peaceful. Soon enough, we’ve made our way back home.

“Meet out here at seven-thirty?” I offer. 

“Sounds good.” Mari replies cheerily. “Good night, you two!” 

“Good night.” Setsuna and I return, watching her enter her house before we walk into our own.

Once the door closes, I sigh, relieved. Today was an incredibly busy day, and I’m frankly glad that it’s over. I’ve been given a lot to think about and—

Something nuzzles into my side. 

“You’re like a dog, aren’t you?” I ask, amused, as Setsuna buries her face into my shoulder. She replies with an unidentifiable, drawn-out sound that vaguely feels like a complaint. 

Sighing softly, I bend over slightly and let her hop onto my back as I walk over to our bedroom. It’s good to see her like this, though. That public stoicism of hers has always been rather concerning, so I don’t mind if she shows me this side of her. It’s a constant reminder that there’s a lot of humanity under that shell she constantly uses. 

_ Who would’ve thought she was so affectionate, though? _

“And in you go.” I say as I reach the bed. She flops off my back and smiles, reaching out to me. With a roll of my eyes I let her pull me down with her, still fully clothed.

“Setsuna, I’m still dressed. And so are you.” 

“Mm…okay.” Almost lazily, she works her way out of her top, skirt, and shorts, leaving her in just her underwear. I follow suit, keeping my shirt on. The second I finish, she pulls me back down to her and shifts into my arms, making me hug her. 

I think it had been around two months of letting her hold my hand before she had grown bold enough to move closer, snuggling directly into me. 

_ …I hadn’t been able to push her away.  _

“Tired?” I ask softly. She murmurs a sound of assent. 

“Good night, Setsuna.” 

“Good night, Yuki.” The sealer replies sleepily. 

  
  



	16. (2.1.6) Spark, Closing

#  **2.1.6 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Spark,** ** _Closing_** **(Katsuo’s POV)**

“So? How are they?” My apprentice steps out from the shadows of the rooftop.

I glance at him. Kaito Mizunaka, a professional healer and combatant. For some reason, he insists on continuing to be my apprentice despite being an extremely respected person within his field, second only to the so-called  _ Goddess of Mercy _ herself.

“They’ve surpassed all expectations. Yuki alone…the potential within that child is incredible. There’s an amazing brain in there, and he has an incredibly versatile skillset. Setsuna’s seal abilities will become exponentially powerful, and Mari’s aberration is incredibly strong. If I didn’t have my own  _ Steel _ aberration, she would have killed me then and there with that piercer of hers.”

“You let yourself get hit.” He replies dryly. I incline my head.

“Point. But with how fast her early growth will be, I’m going to have to begin upping my own physical abilities to keep up with her.” 

“Is that so?” He asks rhetorically before changing the topic. “That Setsuna girl, though…you’ve noticed, haven’t you?” 

“That she isn’t a User? Of course. Even if it hadn’t been on the report, the fact is clear as day.” 

“Hijacking the ambient qi around her will only work for so long. I’ll admit she’s exceptionally good at harnessing it even then, what with her limitations. She noticed me  _ through _ my active stealth, even if she wasn’t quite sure what she was feeling.” 

I whistle. “That  _ is  _ impressive. It would seem that there are some advantages to not being a natural User.” 

“Indeed.” 

We stare for a moment at the side-by-side houses. 

“Is your  _ other  _ plan working?” Kaito eventually asks.

“Seems that way. I’m curious to see what  _ hobbies _ they decide to pick up.” 

He turns away. “Push that Setsuna girl into art. She has a talent for it.” Without another word, he disappears back into the shadows, heading towards the hospital.

I snort. “Damn bastard.” _Didn’t even let me ask him to teach Yuki about poison._ _Ah, whatever. I’ve more options than that, anyways. Including one, who, if I understand correctly…_

“…Well, they’ve got a lot of work cut out for them before they need to worry about that shit, anyways.” 

  
  



	17. (2.2.1) Leashed, Part 1

#  **2.2.1 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Leashed, Part 1**

After our morning preparations, we head outside to wait for Mari. Her door opens right on time.

“Yo.” She greets us, meeting us in front of our mailbox, which I’ve already checked — empty as usual.

“Hey.” 

“Good morning.” Setsuna.

“So, uh…does anyone know  _ where _ we were supposed to meet?  _ He _ didn’t say anything at all about it.” 

“Right here.” A voice above us says. We whirl around and quickly look up, finding our handler sitting lazily on my roof. 

_ I swear he wasn’t there before.  _

For a moment, I don’t recognize him — he has neutral, if rough features that make him look like your typical  _ commander _ , with a deep scar over one eye, even.

I frown. An injury like that…it should have taken his eye out, yet a pair of steel-grey eyes pierce into me.

“Nice and early, I see. Very good.”

I suspect that he knows where we all live because he tailed us last night. It makes the most sense when you combine that with him knowing about the  _ time  _ we’d be meeting up, too. For him to be here half an hour early, coincidentally exactly when we were supposed to meet? 

“Anyways, I’ve decided on the general schedule for this week. I want everyone awake here at eight in the morning every day from now until Saturday. We’ll be training until twelve. You’ll have a one-hour break for lunch, and we’ll reconvene at whichever place I tell you to at one. Training will complete at four. For the next two hours after that, I expect you three to be together. I don’t really care what you do, but I want you guys to bond more  _ as a team. _ After that, you’re excused until the next day. Any concerns?”

I close my eyes, contemplating this schedule. I’m going to have to relay this schedule to Hikaru…since I’ll be meeting her tonight, letting her know that I’ve graduated, and…well, I’ll be beginning my apprenticeship. Fourteen hours left, some of which I have to sleep, eat, and prepare in, for personal training and my apprenticeship. The former wouldn’t normally be a problem…if it weren’t for my Ice affinity. Between all of that, I’ll be hard-pressed to train much on my own…

_ I’ll figure it out. _

“I shouldn’t have any problems.” I say. Setsuna and Mari assent readily. 

“Good. You three, grab these.” He pulls a sealed scroll out from his pocket, lays it on the stone sidewalk in front of us, and triggers the unsealing array.

“…What do those do…?” I ask cautiously. He’s unsealed six pills — three red, three blue.

“They make you feel like shit.” He says bluntly. “Also known as qi suppressants.”

Ah, I know what those are. They make it effectively impossible to externalize or manifest qi. So while eating one wouldn’t touch my internal regeneration or resistance, I wouldn’t be able to use any Wind, Ice, or other elemental techniques. 

“The suppressant and counteragent respectively, right?” I ask, glancing at them.

“Yes. Red’s the one you want now, and blue’s the one you want to stop the effect. Obviously, I’ll be holding onto the latter.” I head over and palm the red, looking at it dubiously. Setsuna and Mari, taking my cue, do the same.

A quick medical scan proves to me that the compound is indeed what he’s talking about — I recognize the chemicals used in them. 

“What are we going to be doing while under the influence of these?” I ask.

“Oh, nothing much…just a simple prison escape.” He says, smirking as he reseals the counteragents.

_ That  _ is  _ a potentially plausible situation, although I suspect that he’s doing this for more than just that fun experience. _

“Your guards are going to be some of your fellow graduates, as a matter of fact.” 

“And they aren’t going to be under the same effect, are they?” I ask, groaning.

“Ah, you get the idea already.” He says, smirking. I make a face. 

Mari looks intrigued. “This shouldn’t be too bad for me, then.”

_ That’s right…she  _ was _ first place by a significant margin. Comes with being older, more experienced, and in better shape. I’m pretty sure she could take Setsuna and I both on at the same time…qi-less.  _

He smirks. “If you say so. Now, follow me. Don’t swallow it yet, but hold onto it.”

_ Even with this little problem…there are  _ quite  _ a few tricks I have under my sleeve. That informal apprenticeship with Hikaru is really paying off. _

“We’ve calculated for weight and whatnot, but there’s still some margin of error…that being said, four hours. By the way, you’ll be doing the same exercise in reverse to the other team, so be sure to think of some basic ideas. Since you three are a particularly strong team, you’ll be handicapped a bit, too.”

“In what way?” I say.

“Mari won’t be allowed her qi back for the full duration of this exercise. Her dosage has been doubled to compensate.”

Mari curses. I snort —  _ both _ clauses will probably apply to her. With her as obviously strong as she is, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was isolated by the opposing team.

“Anyways, let’s head to the training ground. There’s been some construction there, but you won’t be able to familiarize yourself with anything but the outside. You’ll be blinded and bound before being taken inside. Let’s go.”

“Any ideas?” Mari whispers to us as we begin running there. 

I shake my head. “We’re missing information, I think. This feels too straightforward.” 

“Hmm…”

The other team and handler are already waiting for us at the training ground, accompanied by a shockingly large stone and metal building that covers most of the whole ground. All of this in one night? It’s not very detailed, but all the same…that’s pretty damn impressive. 

And the other team—

Sayaka sends me a malicious grin. She’s with two other boys I’m not familiar with, as well as an older man I assume is their handler. 

“Right. Now that we’re all here, it’s time we told you about the other half of this exercise.”

_ Ah. _

“You already know that one team will be acting as the would-be escapees, and one team will be acting as the guards. Now, the guard team is not allowed to harm the escaping team — treat them like diplomatically important individuals. Any methods of capture or restraint must not bring any significant or permanent harm to them.” 

_ Hm…as long as Mari’s conscious, she should be able to outspeed everyone, even carrying Setsuna and I. Our goal, then, is to keep her conscious no matter what.  _

_ No, wait! She doesn’t have qi. We can’t rely on her to carry us completely, then…then our next best bet is to disable the other team, but…we won’t have qi… _

“There’s a second part of this assignment. The team leader of the escaping team will receive a passcode. If they give up the passcode…the team automatically forfeits.” 

“And if the guard team breaks the rules?” I ask.

“Then they automatically forfeit.” 

My mind races with ideas. 

“Team A will be my team.” Katsuo announces. “They will be the prisoner team first. To win, they must escape the facility and reach the rendezvous point in the center of the training ground’s forest. All three of you must be there to win, although you don’t all need to be conscious. You have four hours, starting from the moment you step inside the facility. Team B, if they aren’t all there at the rendezvous point at or before that time, you will win.” 

“Setsuna.” I mutter. She glances at me curiously, and I tap the sword at my waist. She nods in understanding, and I hand my sheathed sword over to her. She seals it into her belt. 

_ There, now that’s a weapon they can’t disarm me of.  _

“Swallow your pills.” 

I do so without hesitation, Mari and Setsuna following. The latter glances around, then sends me the smallest of smirks.

_ Did she—?!  _

“Their team leader is Sayaka.” I whisper quietly to my teammates. “Without a doubt. She’ll have the code when it’s their turn.” 

“How do you know?” Mari asks. 

“The same way she knows that I’ll be the leader of this team.” I say evenly. Sure enough, she glances over, smirking as she catches my gaze.

“We just know each other.”

…

“Listen up, maggots! You shall spill the code, or I shall spill your blood!” 

“Are you having fun?” I ask dryly.

“Yes.” Sayaka admits.

Setsuna, Mari, and I are trapped on one half of the room, locked behind thin metal bars. There’s a steel lock that stops us from simply escaping through the single door. Qi lamps provide surprisingly effective lighting, having been embedded into the walls a few meters away from each other. It’s a very simple but surprisingly intricate metal structure. 

We’ve had to swallow the qi suppressants, and we’ve also been searched, our weapons taken away. Lastly, our arms have been tied tightly behind our back with sturdy rope. 

_ Though…they can’t take away Setsuna’s sealed weapons. Since she can’t use her qi, she can’t use her seals…and she was sure to immediately swallow her pill first. Fast thinking.  _

_ Though I’m under the effects of the pill…well, let’s see. I’m thinking half an hour should be enough.  _

On the other side of the bars lie our captors, doing their best to be menacing. They aren’t succeeding. 

“Anyways, you know the drill. You’re obviously the team leader, so we’re gonna need to…rough ya up a bit. Now are we going to do this the hard way, or are we going to do this the hard way?”

“I love the choices.” I mutter. “Well, you should know that I won’t go out without a fight.”

She smiles mirthlessly. “Oh, Yuki. Have you already forgotten? I have qi. You don’t. So…”

Her qi flares, a blast of wind slamming me hard into the opposing wall, dazing me. 

“Sayaka!” Setsuna protests, uncharacteristically loud. 

“What?” She asks innocently. “He’ll be fine. No significant or permanent harm, right? A bruise or two…a concussion…all good.” 

I grimace, clutching at my head. 

_ She caught me off guard. I didn’t have time to reinforce myself against that blow, and she didn’t exactly hold back much. _

“That’s…that’s…”

_ So Sayaka realized that already?  _

“Don’t worry.” The blunette says brightly. “I also realized that we don’t need you guys conscious, so you won’t have to see anything else unpleasant!” 

Setsuna reacts instantly, snapping the ropes behind her back and sweeping her hands out, hurling a series of throwing needles. Sayaka reacts instantly, a Wind barrier pushing the projectiles aimed at her away—

One of her compatriots dodge, but the other has a needle jabbed into his arm, flinching. Setsuna takes immediate advantage, lunging forward and hurling more needles through the gaps of the bars— 

They’re deflected by Sayaka, one of the needles flipping up, being seized by her qi, and—

Mari intercepts the needle sent flying at Setsuna’s shoulder with a movement so fast that I can barely track it. 

“I thought you guys searched her!” Sayaka hisses accusingly. “Are you okay, Koji?” 

“I’m fine.” He rips the needle out, throwing it to the ground. Sayaka steps over, pressing her hand into the small puncture, and when she lifts it off a moment later, the damage has been healed.

_ Looks like you’ve been hard at work, too.  _

“Hm.” Sayaka paces back and forth, keeping an eye on us. It appears that Setsuna’s attack has shocked her out of her complacency. Her two teammates eye us warily.

“Something wrong?” I ask smugly as the sealer draws a knife and severs both of our bindings. “Guess you can’t just throw us around, huh?” 

“Be as it may…” She frowns. “You’re still stuck in there qi-less. And all I have to do is get you out.” 

“You think so?” I step up. “Go on, then. Take me out.” 

“…Yuki, what are you doing?” Mari asks, confused.

“Come on, Sayaka. They won’t interfere. Unless…” I let a lazy smirk cross my face. “You’re not  _ scared,  _ are you?”

_ Come on, Sayaka. I know you.  _

“Y-You — fine! Get out here, then.”

“Let me go.” I tell Mari and Setsuna seriously. The latter studies me, the slightest of frowns on her face, before resting a hand on Mari’s arm. 

With that taken care of, Sayaka unlocks the door, watching me suspiciously. True to my word, I step outside, and let her teammate rebind me as they lock the door again. Soon enough, Sayaka’s leading me by herself to a different part of the prison, a room with a door that locks from the inside. There’s a sturdy metal chair in the middle, and she guides me to it, making me sit down, then ties more rope around my arms and legs, binding me carefully to the chair.

The strength she uses suggests some level of reinforcement involved. 

_ If she hadn’t, I’d have kicked her in the head. Better to wait and see.  _

“You know…” She says conversationally, once I’m firmly secured. “I’m really curious as to what you think you’re doing. I know you tried to bait me out on purpose, so…what’re you planning on doing next?”

_ She knows me, too. _

“Well…I’m here to stall, obviously. You only have…let’s see, about three hours and forty minutes.” 

“You’re really confident…” She hums thoughtfully. “Why? How much stronger do you think you are compared to me?” 

“Hm…I dunno. Why don’t you find out?” 

She laughs. “I’m not quite that careless, Yuki.” 

I sigh theatrically. “Worth a shot.”

“So…how far have you gotten in your medic training? It’s been almost two years since we’ve received that apprentice offer from Ms. Kozakura.” She asks curiously. 

_ What? Why is she asking this? I should understate it, to be safe. _

“I’m….about at the second-star level now. That’s fine, since I’ve just graduated from the Academy. How about you?” I say, pretending to be a little hesitant. She tilts her head curiously.

“Aha! So I’m definitely beating you, then! I’m at almost a third-star level already!” She says cheerfully.

_ I’ll be sure to watch out for  _ that _ , then. _

“Really? Wow. I’ve been having trouble with some of the qi control required.” I admit, and it’s even an honest admission. 

_ More curiously, how does she know her own ranking? I know mine because Hikaru evaluates me semi-frequently — three and a half. So who did she ask to get an idea of her ability? _

Sayaka grins. “Find your own teacher! I’m getting to fifth-star first.” 

_ Oh, I’ve already got my teacher, and I’d bet she’s better than yours! _

Falling into the role I’ve assigned myself, I just make a face at her.

The conversation goes silent.

“You’re new to interrogation, aren’t you?” I ask, smirking a little. She looks a little flustered, which is precisely the reaction I wanted to elicit out of her.

“S-Shut up! How many people have  _ you  _ interrogated?” 

“More than you’d think.” I say mysteriously, relying on my Veil to help me keep a straight face.

Sayaka raises an eyebrow. “Is that so?” 

I don’t think I’ll be able to take that lie much farther — I’ll admit that I’m totally clueless about interrogation as well. I’m not really suited to that kind of thing…I think? Who knows. Time to find a new track, either way.

“How about raw power?” I ask instead. “You might have me beat in medicine, but I bet I can still take you in a fight.” I say impishly.

“Ha. We can talk about that later, though — no more stall tactics.” She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath.

_ Damn. Well, I didn’t really expect that to work. Even so, I’ve stalled nearly ten minutes, which is excellent considering that the interrogation hasn’t even started.  _

“I’m not seeing any choices on interrogating you.” She admits. “You’re not particularly squeamish, I don’t have anything super embarrassing I can do to you that would make you break…you’re pretty prideful, but you’re even more pragmatic…I could threaten to reveal Setsuna’s disability, but that…I don’t want to win like that…” 

“You’re surprisingly conscientious for a ninja.” I reply dryly. “It wouldn’t matter — I wouldn’t break for that, anyways. She doesn’t care now, so whether you say anything or not doesn’t matter.” 

The blue-haired girl shrugs. “Ah, I wasn’t planning on doing that, so…eh.”

“Giving up, then?” I ask. 

“Oh, absolutely not.” She shakes her head. “Come on, Yuki, you know me better than that.”

“I do.” I admit. “So what exactly is it that you have planned?”

She winces. “I’m sorry, Yuki. Please…don’t hate me for this. Are you familiar with…waterboarding?”

“…Wait, you—?” 

  
Her fist slams into the side of my head, and that’s all I know before the world goes black.


	18. (2.2.2) Leashed, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Graphic description of waterboarding. If this makes you uncomfortable, skip to the end. I'll TL;DR the chapter.
> 
> Also, I've finally managed to figure out how to easily destroy that stupid double spacing! I will...go back and edit the other chapters...let this author note show that I have triumphed over technology once again! Ha!

#  **2.2.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Leashed, Part 2**

**Content Warning: Graphic description of waterboarding.**

When I come to, I find myself lying down on a sturdy steel table that she’s acquired from…somewhere. My arms and legs are utterly numb, proof of some kind of drug. I…can’t move. Can’t see. There’s a cloth blindfold over my face. 

My mind races. Last I remember…right, I was being held down. And I’m supposed to be…

_ Shit. I can’t do  _ that _ while I’m unconscious…but it degraded slightly thanks to my efforts…eighteen minutes. Eighteen more minutes. _

“Awake?” Sayaka’s voice calls out from somewhere behind me. 

“Yes. Was the blindfold really necessary?” 

“It wasn’t.” She admits. “It’s for me.” 

“…For you?”

“Perhaps I’m just not a very good ninja.” She says, a little self-deprecatingly. “I…I don’t think I can look you in the eyes while I do this.” As she talks, she places a cloth over my face, leaving my mouth free. 

“Waterboarding. An ancient form of torture that simulates drowning by placing a cloth over the individual’s face.” The blunette murmurs. “Well, to call it simulated drowning…that’s not really true, is it? You really are drowning. You can’t breathe, not even a little bit. It’s a horrible feeling, I’ve heard.”

_ …Shit. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this after all. Will I be able to keep my rationality at all? It’s a devastating form of torture, one I’m surprised that Sayaka is aware of. I only know of it through Hikaru, who’s confided to me that it’s one of the few methods of torture she can’t resist. _

_ My resistance to pain will not help. My ability to chill my emotions will not help. This does not rely on pain, or even truly fear. It targets the animal instincts that lie inside every human. For Sayaka to resort to this…so she’s truly serious, then? _

A second cloth, then a third cloth, comes over. The weight is enough to spark a tiny shard of fear in my heart. 

“I don’t want to do this, Yuki. So just give me the code. Please.” 

I hesitate, stalling for time as well as frantically thinking to myself. 

_ In sixteen minutes, I could have cleansed the qi suppressant from my body. I am not going to get sixteen minutes.  _

_ How long will it take me to cleanse the paralysis drug? If I can get rid of that…I can use reinforcement to break free.  _

“Sayaka.” 

“Yes?” 

“I won’t give it up.” 

“…Understood. I’ll ask again in one, three, five, and ten minutes.” 

_ Five minutes. It’ll take me five minutes, but…I won’t be able to concentrate on this while under the…procedure.  _

“Forgive me, Yuki.”

Then the cloths are placed over my mouth and water is poured, flowing into my nose. I try to hold my breath but Sayaka hits me hard in the stomach, forcing the air out from me and— 

**I’m drowning.**

**I’m drowning I’m drowning I’m drowning**

**I’m going to die I’m going to die I’M GOING TO DIE**

The cloth comes off as I choke, gasping desperately for air. Sayaka hits me in the stomach again, forcing the water from my nose and mouth, and I realize that —  _ how long had it been? _ — I’ve managed to move despite the paralytic, my arms and legs aching from when I’d slammed them on the table. 

“…A-Are you ready to talk now?” She sounds shaken. “That was…that was eight seconds.”

It takes a few moments before I’m even capable of responding. “I…t-that…that was…” 

“I’m sorry.” She whispers. 

“W-Wait.” I pant. “Wait.”

“Will you talk?” 

“N-No, but—“ 

The cloth comes down. My body instinctively tenses, but I’m not able to muster even the slightest shred of resistance when the water comes down, Sayaka hitting me again—

**drOWniNG**

**nEeD AiR nEEd AIR caN’T brEaTHe**

**doN’T wANT tO dIE**

The cloth comes up. 

“Talk, Yuki!” 

I realize belatedly that I threw up a little bit when she’d forced the water out from my lungs. How much time has passed? Three minutes? Five? 

“W-What…do you….want to talk about…?” 

“The passcode.” Her voice is gentle, angelic. “If you give me the password, I can make it all stop hurting.” 

For a moment, her voice sounds strangely distant. 

Then the fear clears. The pain fades away.

_ Though the Veil can’t prevent that pure animalistic terror, it can push away the aftereffects. If I just…use it.  _

With renewed clarity, I review the situation once more.

_ I can’t take much more of this. I almost broke that last time. I can’t do five minutes. There has to be something…something easier.  _

_ That…!  _

“I’ll…I’ll talk.” I whisper, voice raspy. “I’ll talk. Please don’t…not again. No more.” 

“It’ll be over soon.” She says soothingly. “Just tell me, okay? Let’s end this. Tell me, Yuki, what’s the password?” 

“…No.” 

“H-Huh?”

“I told you. I won’t tell.” 

“…Yuki…I…please, stop. I can tell, even if you try to brush it aside.  _ You’re shaking _ . I don’t…I really don’t want to hurt you. It’s within the rules, but…Yuki, please. Make this easier for both of us.”

“No.” 

“…Then…I’m sorry.” The cloth comes down.

I take a deep breath. Sayaka notices, punching me in the stomach. 

“O-Ow!” 

I’ve reinforced my abdomen, and my entire body, with qi. Her strike barely staggers me, but most likely bruises her knuckles. 

“That’s right, Setsuna was able to do that…” She hits me again, and though it’s much harder, relatively speaking, it’s not enough to take the precious air from my lungs. 

“Yuki! Stop…being…difficult!” Blows rain down on my stomach, not too hard lest she break the rules, but I resist, sinking into the Veil to clamp on the pain.

_ She can’t…she can’t hit me hard enough to get past— _

A screeching sound rings out — the sound of a door being torn off its hinges.

“W-What the—“ And that’s as far as Sayaka gets before the sound of flesh hitting flesh rings out. 

“Yuki!” It’s Mari’s voice. Hastily, she tears the cloth off my face, then quickly undoes the blindfold. I blink groggily, the sheer shock snapping me out of my Veil, back to the surface— 

“…Good…morning.”

“Are you okay!? Gods, so she really…” She looks down angrily, and I follow her gaze to see an unconscious Sayaka, bleeding slightly from the head. 

“I didn’t…break. It’s…f-fine.” 

“You don’t look fine!” She retorts. “How…How long did she put you under for?” 

“I…I’m not sure.” I think back, flinching as the memories slip back into my head. “I…based on the missing time, perhaps…one minute? I think it was one minute.” 

“A full minute of waterboarding…” She hisses. “Okay…okay. Can you stand?” 

“Yes.” I remember that I’m still paralyzed. “No.” 

“Hey, look, Yuki? You don’t need to act strong for me, okay? I’m…we’re teammates. I’ve got you, alright?” 

I glance at her, realizing belatedly that she’s been completely sincere this whole time. 

“You’re making it really hard to keep my cool image of you.” I mutter as she awkwardly maneuvers me onto her back, wrapping my still-unresponsive limbs around her so that I don’t fall. With that taken care of, she walks out, navigating through the maze of hallways and rooms. 

“What?” 

I shake my head, cracking a brief smile. “Nothing. How did…how did you get out?” 

“Setsuna.” Mari says. “She, uh. If I understand correctly, she sealed the pill instead of swallowing it.” 

“I knew it.” I mutter, remembering Setsuna’s small smirk. “She actually…that’s really impressive. I didn’t think she’d be able to do it.” 

“W-Wait, she…didn’t she put it in her mouth?”

“Yep. And she sealed it. A print with her tongue, if I’m not mistaking.”

“…How the hell?”

“Qi control.” I say, smiling slightly. “Very, very good qi control, bordering on perfect.”

_ Setsuna might only have a drop of qi available to her at any given time, but she’s really learned how to maximize it.  _

“I see…” She says contemplatively. 

“Yes. I assume the other two are disabled as well, then?” 

“Not sure.” Mari admits. “We got one, but Setsuna’s the one holding off the other…damn, I’m lost.” 

“Left, then the third right.”

She trusts my instructions, and we soon find ourselves in the main hall. 

“This way, right?” 

“Yes.”

When we enter the cell room— 

“Void above…what…?” 

The room is absolutely riddled with throwing needles, hundreds of them scattered along the floor. Setsuna stands in the center of the room, having apparently managed to break free, and the two captors…

I wince. They’re  _ riddled _ with needles. Both of them lay unconscious within the cell, the lock having been...melted away by something? 

“An appropriate level of force for a school setting.” I mutter, staring at the damage.

“They aren’t children anymore.” Setsuna says quietly. “And they participated in doing far worse to you. How long did they put you under? And…they drugged you too, didn’t they?”

I don’t answer, grimacing. “At any rate, I’m fine now, so—“

“You’re telling me that if I dunked your head underwater right now, you’d be completely okay with it?” Mari asks coldly. 

**nEeD AiR nEEd AIR caN’T brEaTHe**

“Thought so.” She mutters, and I realize that for a moment I had frozen up. 

“How long did they put him under?” Setsuna asks Mari directly. 

“A minute.” 

The sealer bites her lip. “I see. Let’s get out of here, now, then.”

“The needles?” Mari asks, glancing around.

Setsuna shakes her head. “Leave them. Without Yuki’s Wind techniques, I won’t be able to get them close enough to seal again. Or, rather, I could, but it’d take me way too much qi and time, time we don’t have.” 

“Agreed.” I say. “Though you can put me down now. I’ve finished cleansing the paralytic.” 

“You…what?”

I pull my arms out from her and catch myself on the ground, wincing. “I’ve finished. Working on the qi suppressant now…should take me about, hmm…seventeen minutes or so?”

“You two really are talented.” She murmurs. 

“So we’ve said.” I agree. “Now…let’s go. Take our time, though. I doubt they’ll be so generous as to let the suppressant wear off if we get there this early, so let me cleanse mine out, at least.” I glance at Mari. “With the way they dosed you, I doubt I’ll be able to cleanse yours without at least an hour’s work…so it’s probably not worth the effort.” 

“That’s fine.” She scratches her head, glancing around at the mess. “I think you guys have got it covered.” 

…

“So exactly what happened while I was gone?” I ask, as we steadily make our way through the forest. Setsuna takes the time to thoroughly trap the area.

_ Hey, if they won’t give us the time to cleanse the suppressant, I don’t think it’s unfair to stack the odds in our favor for our turn. _

“Well, after Sayaka took you out, Setsuna told me to wait for a little bit. Sayaka came back, and asked one of the boys to fill up a container of water. I think that’s when Setsuna realized what she had in mind, and after a few minutes, she started cutting loose. You know how Setsuna was throwing projectiles? Sayaka’s the only one with any direct method of blocking. The rest of them had to dodge…and they couldn’t really attack back, not with Setsuna behind the bars. It worked out pretty good until one of them escaped to try and get Sayaka, and that’s when she threw some kind of acid at the door lock, which let  _ me _ get out…so I was able to catch the runaway and take him down.”

“Without qi?” 

“Who do you take me for?” She asks, mildly amused.

“Fair enough.” I admit. 

“I just tossed him back into the room, then went to help you as fast as possible. And that’s everything.”

“That explains a lot.” I mutter. “Well…let’s see. I guess Sayaka hadn’t realized that Setsuna hadn’t been under the effects of the suppressant, or she probably wouldn’t have left. It’s safe to say that they’ll know now. I don’t know if Sayaka will know that I have my own qi available to me, and they won’t know whether or not you have access to yours…” 

“So we might have an information advantage?” Setsuna asks, flicking a tagged dagger into one of the trees. 

“Maybe. I don’t know.” I shake my head. “No point worrying about it. It’s good to know that we have a decisive combat advantage, though I’m worried about Sayaka.” 

“She placed higher than you, right?” 

“In unarmed combat specifically, and a good bit of the academic stuff.” I agree. “As well as overall ranking. I’m pretty sure I can keep her in check, especially with her qi suppressed.” 

“Will you be the one to interrogate her, then?” Mari asks. 

“Yes.” 

With that, we finally enter the clearing to see our handlers…playing a game of cards, apparently. 

Katsuo clicks a nearby stopwatch off. “Thirty minutes? Damn, you three escaped too fast. I didn’t even get to clean this guy out yet.”

The other handler snorts. “Ah, whatever. Taught my kids something valuable, though. They needed the reality check.” 

_ Do they know what happened? How?  _

Katsuo picks up his chips, sealing them away into a scroll. “Well, that was pretty good of you guys, ‘Team A’. Good job, everyone.” He glances at me. “Are you fit to continue?” 

“Of course.” I say firmly. 

“Good. Well, we’ll reset the scenario, and then flip the situation. I’m curious to see how they’ll perform.” Katsuo replies, in a seemingly good mood.

“Yo, you three.” The other handler says, addressing us. “Go easy on them, let them escape, but fight them and stop them from reaching their objective. They need practical combat training, and I want to see their combat dynamics as a team.” 

We glance to our handler, who nods readily.

“Yes, sir!” We salute. 

And so, we begin our trek back, ready for round two. Setsuna slips towards my side, slipping my hand into hers. On the surface, it’s a cute gesture, but…

_ [Are you really okay?] _

Subtle squeezes of her hand paint the real story. 

_ [Not sure. Using the Veil right now. Safer.]  _

_ [Talk about it later with me, please?] _

Mari glances back at us, curiosity on her features. 

_ [Okay.] _

Her thumb brushes over my hand once, then she lets go. 

We make it back quickly, the two handlers quickly going inside to fix the damage we’ve caused. I head to the cell room with Setsuna, the suppressant finally cleansed from my system, and use my Wind abilities to sweep up the needles for Setsuna to reseal. 

“Thanks.” She says gratefully. “I don’t think I would’ve had the funds to buy more, not until I got my next check from the bank.” 

“No problem.” 

After, I leave and hunt down the room I was held in. As I turn the corridor, Sayaka stumbles out, holding her head. She glances at me, then averts her gaze.

“I don’t hate you.” I say. Truthfully, even. 

She grimaces. “You should.” 

“You did what needed to be done. That’s all.”

The blunette flinches. “Will you be doing the same?”

“We have always done what we needed to.” I turn around, intent on leaving now that I’ve ascertained her safety.

“Even at the expense of others?”

“Sometimes.”

_ And what have I trained for? An entire lifetime of brutal training and back-breaking work to survive and thrive in this harsh world…  _

I smile slightly. 

“But not always.”

…

When I return to the cell room, it’s to find that everything has been restored. 

“Alright, Team B. Swallow those pills.” 

I watch carefully to make sure all of them swallow and aren’t simply holding it in their mouths. 

“Now, Team A. Restrain them.”

Setsuna takes the prepared rope and tightly ties their arms behind their backs. Sayaka grimaces as her knot is pulled particularly tight. 

And with that, they’re locked inside the cell, and the two handlers leave us alone, chattering about their card game.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sayaka tortures Yuki for a bit. He doesn't like it very much. Mari comes to rescue him, having been broken out by Setsuna -- who sealed the chakra suppressant pill she was supposed to eat with her tongue. 
> 
> Mari and Setsuna are NOT HAPPY. Setsuna is worried, and Sayaka feels bad.


	19. (2.2.3) Leashed, Part 3

#  **2.2.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Leashed, Part 3**

“Well, now what?” One of her teammates asks. Koji, if I remember correctly. 

“Nothing.” I say brightly. “Absolutely nothing.” 

“...Huh?” 

“We don’t  _ need _ to interrogate any of you. We just need to hold you here for four hours.” I grin. “So settle in and make yourself comfortable. This’ll be a long wait.”

_ There’s a second part of this assignment. The team leader of the escaping team will receive a passcode. If they give up the passcode…the team automatically forfeits. _

Never did they say that we  _ needed _ to extract a passcode. It was a method of success, certainly, but not a requirement. I watch as Sayaka comes to the realization, mortified. 

_ Apparently she hadn’t figured that out. _

“Ah, Setsuna, could I have my…” 

She unseals and tosses my sword to me. 

“Thanks.” I frown at the weapon. 

…

_ A few minutes later… _

“…This is boring.” Her other teammate says. 

“Many things are.” I say idly, cleaning my blade with a rag and some oil that Setsuna had sealed on her person. Holding it up to the light of the lamps, I’m satisfied with the gleaming of the steel and sheathe it away. Next to me, Setsuna occupies herself with sharpening a few knives — though I can see that, like me, her ‘idle’ activity is something that can be tossed aside in a heartbeat. 

And then there’s Mari, who just looks bored, and in fact is not even pretending to be entertained.

“So you’re Koji, right?” I ask, pointing to one boy. “A Fire User, by the looks of it. And you…I’m afraid I don’t know your name.” 

_ And this one’s smarter…I can’t tell what affinity he wields. He’s been hiding it since the beginning.  _

“Hisoki.” He volunteers shortly. 

“Cool. Nice to meet you guys. I don’t remember much about you, so you must have been in a different class, right?”

“Seems to be the case.”

“Well—“ 

Sayaka rips through her bonds and shears a hole through the steel wall behind her with Wind.

_ Wait, what the fu— _

Reaching out, she quickly severs the bindings on her teammates before pulling them quickly through the hole they’ve made— 

Setsuna whirls, a trio of throwing needles sent flying even as her other hand slaps against my wrist, disarming me of my sword as I instinctively move to throw it. 

“Fuck. Thanks.” I quickly bend down to pick it up, pressing Wind into the blade. “Mari, flank them.”

“On it!” She darts to the side, exiting the room. Two slashes later, I’ve kicked down the door to the cell, running through the hole with Setsuna chasing after me with seals active. 

Quickly slipping in, I quickly look around — they’ve already moved out of sight…!? 

“Up.” Setsuna says calmly. 

Startled, I realize that she’s right — Sayaka tore a hole through the top, too. Mari runs in a moment later, eyes drawn to the light. 

“Go outside and intercept them.” I command Mari, who nods, sprinting away. 

_ Even without qi, her sheer agility is incredibly admirable. _

“And us?”

In response, I leap up, reinforcing myself. Sayaka doesn’t disappoint, firing a lance of Wind that sends me skidding across the metal roof.

_ They split up!? _

A strange seal goes off near the hole I came out from, sending out metallic shrapnel and a lot of smoke, and Setsuna scales the broken metal with ease, hurling a knife at me--

_ No, not at me! Behind me! _

I roll sideways as a flaming leg sweeps through the air where I was standing, deflecting the knife. The flat of my sword lashes out as I lunge, catching him in the back of the head— 

The boy, Koji, shakes it off, revealing that he’s at least reasonably proficient with reinforcement. Springing into a forward flip, he launches a fireball at my chest that I shear through with my Wind-empowered blade— 

Setsuna races forward, swinging her knife at his face as he lands. Though it would be against the rules if it landed, no normal human can ignore a blade slashing at their head, and he sways back awkwardly— 

She jumps into a forward roll that ends in a rolling kick, crashing into the side of his head and sending him to the ground, where he doesn’t get back up. 

_ That entire exchange only took four seconds! _

A moment later, Wind ripples past us, blowing the heavy smoke towards us. We shield our eyes. 

“Setsuna!” 

“Right!” 

She pulls flush against my back as I stab my sword into the surprisingly thin metal, rending the metal with a pulse of qi. No longer able to support our weight, it collapses, taking both of us — Setsuna holding Koji’s unconscious body — back down into the prison.

Setsuna tosses another of her fireless explosive seals up, attached to a needle, and we quickly retreat as it goes off, the smoke flooding the corridor. 

“Now what?” She asks, as we flee through the corridors. At my gesture, she passes off Koji to me, and I throw him into a nearby room, verifying that there’s only one entrance.

“How long will it take you to seal this off?” 

“Five minutes.” 

“Do it from the inside. I will guard you.” 

She nods, then hustles inside. I suppress my qi and wait.

Two minutes later, Sayaka and Hisoki come around the corner. The former reacts instantly, Wind whipping up around her. 

“Where’s Koji!?” She shakes her head, glancing around at the rooms. “Oh, you’re the guard, I see. Hisoki, look to ambush him at a good moment, okay?”

“Yes!” He goes around the corner, disappearing from sight.

“You know I could hear you, right?” I ask, perplexed.

She smirks. “Oh, I know. But if you’re busy worrying about him, well…” Her expression sharpens, turns vicious. “Then you won’t be worrying enough about me!” 

She takes off like a bullet, visible qi swirling around her hands. Still reinforced, I dodge past her first strike—

_ Woah. That would have blown me through the wall! _

_ — _ and, against my better judgment, attempt to engage in a close-combat fight with her, pivoting to kick her in the back. She rolls with the impact, flowing into a high flip and loosing a powerful bolt of Wind at me that I’m forced to dodge. 

_ What the—?!  _

She grins, Wind swirling around her hands, and launches a quick trio of shots that travel with blistering speed. I parry two with a wind-enhanced Blade and dodge the last, wincing as it grinds into the metal behind me. 

“When did you get so powerful?” I ask, jumping back to gain distance — and more time to dodge. A mistake, as it turns out, as her qi audibly hums — my hairs stand on end — before bursting out in a piercing thin laser. I leap to the side, raising my blade, and parry it with great effort.

Then I frown, realizing the weapon feels unusually light. Holding it in front of me, I curse as I realize the shot had seared a line into the steel, gouging out a significant chunk. 

_ The balance is off now. _

She darts forward again— 

The sudden realization that I can detect a second person’s aura causes me to spin just in time to face a wave of water.

_ Careless— _

It hits— 

**nEeD AiR nEEd AIR caN’T brEaTHe**

**gET oUT of MY HEAD**

Wind explodes off of me, sending water flying everywhere. Hisoki’s slammed hard into the wall, a nasty gash across his abdomen as I whirl, hurling the damaged blade in my hands. It’s off — badly — but the impact makes Sayaka flinch, hesitant to step forward.

The moment costs her as  _ Setsuna _ slips out of the corner and crashes her elbow into the side of her head, sending her reeling. She responds quickly, catching Setsuna’s next strike before landing a punishing kick to her ribs. As I lunge forward, she hurls my partner at me, forcing me to catch her. In the distraction, she escapes, fleeing around the corner that Setsuna’s come in from. 

“Are you okay?”

She coughs. “Heal — Heal Hisoki, or that loophole—“ 

“On it!” 

_ No significant or permanent damage. That rule changes when you’re working with a competent healer. _

I run after the fallen boy, who’s gasping and trying to stem the bleeding. A hit to the head puts a stop to that before I place my hands over his injury and begin the healing.

_ A straightforward cut. Since it’s my own qi, it’s especially easy to heal despite being a supernatural injury.  _

Soon enough, he’s healed. I leave him there, running to check on Setsuna. She’s broken into her own sealed room— 

“Fuck.” She whispers.

Koji’s gone, a hole torn through the far side. It looks strangely symmetric—

“You made that hole?” I ask. She nods. 

“Yes. Guess she figured that out, too.” She turns to face me, eyes widening. “Where’s—“ 

We race back — thankfully, Hisoki’s still there. Apparently, Sayaka isn’t confident in her abilities to get away holding two unconscious people. 

“He shouldn’t wake up for a while.” The sealer bites her lip, thinking. “I drugged him.”

“Good call.” I agree. “But…I think she’s at least as competent at healing as I am. She might be able to pull it out, given enough time. I think she might have done something similar to their medications somehow — all of them have their qi. She tampered with the pills, I think.”

_ But that would require immense control…was it really her? I can’t think of any other explanation… _

She turns to look at me. “They have their qi…? That’s where the water’s from, right? Are you…okay?” 

I flinch. “Well…I’ve been better.” 

She pats me on the shoulder, a reassuring gesture. “Good. What should we do now?” 

I glance at our new hostage. “You know…it doesn’t feel like it, but we did win that trade. So why don’t we just….do it again?” 

…

Sayaka doesn’t launch her attack until well over an hour later, a thud echoing from the outside of our well-protected cage, reinforced both with seals and tightly packed earth (which in turn has been layered with more seals). 

“He’s going to stay unconscious, right?” Setsuna asks, gesturing at our hostage. 

“For the entire mission unless Sayaka counteracts the drug, yes.” 

“Okay.” She takes a sitting position on the ground, ignoring the banging from outside. “Is Mari still…?” 

“Oops.” I’d completely forgotten my orders to her in the heat of the moment. 

_ Maybe I’m too used to only having Setsuna by my side.  _

“I think she left to intercept them at the forest.” She says, frowning. “It’s weird that we haven’t seen her yet.” 

“How was she in the other room?”

“Good.” The sealer bobs her head. “She’s a very intuitive fighter, I think. React-before-think. Usually works for her, I think, because of how strong she is. Even without qi, I don’t know if I could beat her…” 

“Really?” 

She nods. 

_ That’s surprising to hear. Setsuna is actually a solid fighter in the sense that she has many different tricks she can pull. Against someone without qi, fully-fledged User or not, that should be more than enough.  _

A crash rings out from outside, the metal underneath us shaking. 

“You’ve prepared the contingency plan, right?”

“Of course.” She walks up to the wall where the impacts are coming from, hand glowing blue. She reaches up and presses her hand to the wall, a seal briefly shimmering into existence before fading away. 

“There. That should hold us for a while longer. She’s a great deal more powerful than I’d anticipated, even using you as a base.”

I shake my head. “It’s not power. It’s skill. She’s firing raw qi through some kind of Wind field…I have no idea how it works, but it lets her fire off a lot of shots without the charge time associated with it. And she also has some kind of really powerful piercer…it carved a line into my sword, even though it was reinforced.” 

Her eyes widen. “In that case, we’ll definitely be needing to use the contingency plan.” 

A tremendous impact from outside cracks the earth wall in front of us. 

“Then let’s go.” 

With a flick of her wrist, she hurls a knife into one of the seal tags on the ceiling, shorting it out. A second seal bursts, releasing qi in the form of focused kinetic energy, tearing a neat hole into the ceiling that we leap out of, Hisoki carried on my shoulder. 

A moment later, Sayaka breaks in, a blast of wind crashing into the far wall as she powers through. Then the seals kick in, a double-layered barrier locking her inside. 

And with that in mind, we jump away, over the rooftops and into the forest as she shouts profanity at us.

_ It won’t hold her forever, but it’ll absolutely hold her long enough for what we have in mind. _

_ … _

“Found her.”

“Where?”

“About fifty meters southwest.” 

_ … _

“Ah, found you guys!” 

We shoot her a dry look. “We found you.”

“Oh.” Mari shrugs, not sounding too disappointed. “Well…I’m not exactly a sensor, but I don’t think they ever came this way.”

“You presume correctly, at least as far as I know of.” I drop Hisoki to the ground, beginning my affinity shift. “They spent the whole time harassing us. It was an…interesting experience.”

“Just what happened in there…?” 

Setsuna brings her up to speed as I complete my shift to Earth, gouging a hole in the ground. 

“Oh, you’re doing  _ that?” _ The sealer asks.

“Yep.” 

“Huh?” 

“It’s how we hid from you in the exercise yesterday.” The ground abruptly smoothens out, becoming a small room. I kick the unconscious boy into it as Setsuna jumps in, prepared seals in hand. 

“Ooh.” 

Setsuna puts her hand in front of her mouth and spits, the pill that she had sealed earlier landing in her palm.

“Gross.” Mari mutters as Setsuna forces the pill past the boy’s lips and makes him swallow it before jumping out. 

“ _ Barrier.” _

A faintly glowing blue box forms around the unconscious, suppressed boy.

I frown. “We shouldn’t cover him. If the barrier fails while he’s like that, he might die.” 

Mari jumps up, snapping a branch off a tree. A thick, leafy branch.

“Ooh, good thinking.” 

We cover him briefly in foliage. It…looks a little obvious, but it’s better than the outright glowing of the qi barrier. With the vegetation already existing on the ground, it might pass a quick check if they’re careless. 

“Now what?” 

“Well, I was thinking you could escort Setsuna and make a barrier around the clearing we’re supposed to meet up in as I stall them out.” 

“Wait, but…that’d leave you to fight both of them alone!” 

“It would.” I agree. “But I have a measure of both of their skill levels. I think I can stall them long enough for the barrier, at least. Let me try.” 

Setsuna frowns, staring at me, then nods. 

“Well…if you insist.” 

  
I wave them off. “I’ll be fine.” 


	20. (2.2.4) Leashed, Part 4

#  **2.2.4 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Leashed, Part 4**

“Hm…” 

_If I really want to make this work, I’m going to have to dig deep within me._

“Hah…” 

I take a deep breath in, then out, thinking hard. 

Right now, Water is a liability for me. I can’t use it. So that just leaves me with Wind, but I think that Sayaka might be more proficient than me already. 

I can’t use my sword, given that Sayaka ruined it. I have a few knives on me, though…

_Setsuna’s traps! She strung those up…and I’m standing in the middle of a few of them._

I glance around quickly, noting the locations. None of her seal traps will trigger on me, given that she writes an exception for me into just about everything, so I can afford to be careless with them.

_The problem is that I’m not sure what it is she put up. It could wind up being a hindrance more than a help if I get unpleasantly surprised._

A droplet of water falls on my head. Twitching, I glance up as many more follow, the beginning of a small shower of rain. 

_This much shouldn’t be a hindrance, but…_

Just to be safe, I draw on the Veil a bit more heavily than usual. The sense of unease fades away as I stare into the trees, concentrating on my senses. 

_My range of qi detection is too short. Vision, hearing, and smell are impaired by the rain. How will I be able to tell if they’re coming or not?_

My eyes close.

_It’s just like that day…the first time I Awakened an element. That’s right, if I become one with the Wind…just focus on feeling…_

I can feel it, the way the air fills the space between the trees and leaves. A few dozen meters away, I can feel the airy space that signifies the covering of the barrier Setsuna put up earlier. Everything is natural — the way the currents flow through the forest, being drawn to one point— 

My eyes flash open.

_Wait, that isn’t natural—_

Forewarned, I leap to the side as a laser of Wind nearly shoots through my thigh, drawing a knife as I do so. My detection senses pings as a roaring jet of flame erupts from behind a tree, blowing through it. I’m able to dodge in time, reinforcing my body as much as I’m able. 

Sayaka follows in its wake, slamming into my guard with a powerful kick and sending me flying backwards. Grimacing, I slide away with the help of my qi, feet skimming over the water, then slash out with the knife, sending a small arc of energy at the blue-haired girl. 

She smirks, easily slipping past it, then launches a quick series of Wind bolts as her teammate fires a few small fireballs of his own. Weapon humming with power, I shear through the Fire attacks and dodge the Wind ones, listening as they crash into the trees behind me.

_There!_

Feigning a slash, I hurl the knife instead. Sayaka dodges the charged dagger, eyes wide, but my real target is her teammate behind her. He’s able to dodge it by hurling himself to the side, though the blade nicks his shoulder. More importantly, though, he dodges into one of Setsuna’s traps, which goes off in a flash of light that blinds him. 

Channeling my power into my palms, I overlap my hands and fire off a cannonball of qi at the ground at his feet. Sayaka flinches, narrowly deflecting it with a forceful burst of wind. The two techniques destabilize in a blast of wind that nearly sends me onto my back—

The pulse of wind that smashes into my stomach, on the other hand, does exactly that, sending me tumbling through the now muddy ground. 

_Even through my aura and reinforcement…!?_

As I scramble to my feet, though, a shot from her Wind laser rings out and smashes into my knee, _shattering_ the bones in it and forcing a scream from me as I collapse onto my hands and good leg, hissing in agony. 

_She turned down the power on it, I think. That could have torn my leg off._

“Finally. No more running, Yuki.” 

“That is…an incredibly powerful attack.” I gasp out, pulling the Veil tighter so I can _think_ through the pain.

“I’m glad you agree.” Sayaka says proudly, motioning towards her partner. “Now hold still and let me bind you up, or I’ll have to shoot you with it again.”

“Okay, okay, okay. Gods, woman. If you treat your future boyfriend that roughly, you’ll just grow up alone with a million cats.” 

_Alright, I may be a little more than just_ exhausted. I yank the Veil a bit tighter, forcing the pain and lack of clarity to…go away. 

She shoots me a mildly amused look. 

_Concussion? Concussion, I think? Damn it._

Her partner, Kohee…Koji…hands her a small object. Isn’t that a…that’s a…what the, that’s cheating! 

Sayaka leans forward and shoves the pill between my lips, pinching my nose and holding my mouth closed in an attempt to force me to swallow it.

_No!_

I can hold my breath for a few minutes, but — if I fall unconscious, then they’ll just—

_Resist, resist, how do I—_

**_I can’t lose here!_ **

_…!_

_That’s desperate, but…!_

I gather as much qi as I can into my mouth, straining to pull every bit I can gather in half a second, and fire it as a bullet… _that travels right through Sayaka’s hand._

She rears back in shock as I force my body to move, and I punch her in the throat.

She falls away from me, clutching her throat as she scrambles backwards. Her teammate is moving to react, but I beat him to the chase, hastily drawing another knife and throwing it directly at him. Through a combination of practiced skill and luck, the qi-reinforced blade stabs into his stomach, sending him stumbling backwards with a bloodcurdling scream.

_Need to…act fast!_

I spit out the pill, then target my head with my regenerative factor first, reinforcing it with my medic skills — I was right, there was a concussion. It takes a good ten seconds to clear up — then I heal my shattered knee. Due to the massive damage there, it’s going to take me…probably at least a minute.

_I don’t have time for this!_

I let my regenerative factor handle the work and reinforce my leg, using qi to _force_ it to hold my weight. It protests, a spike of pain lancing through it, but I persist, submerging myself deeper into the Veil as I do so.

Sayaka is sitting up with both hands around her throat, green and blue qi around her hands to heal herself, while Koji is putting pressure on the wound, preventing blood loss.

“W-What…What the hell, Y-Yuki…?” Sayaka rasps. “T-That’s _definitely_ not…following the “no significant or permanent harm” rule.” 

“That’s very true. However, what _significant_ is to a ninja depends on their capabilities, as well as those of their teammates. It’s true being stabbed by a sword would be considered critical for most ninja, but when there’s a healer nearby…why, it’s just a few minutes of concentration and a good chunk of qi. It won’t even leave a scratch.” I reply clinically.

Once I’m able to walk on my leg with ease, I make my way over to Koji and knock him unconscious with a chop to the head. Catching him before he falls, I frisk him, find the suppressant pill that he’s been hanging onto, and force him to swallow it.

“If you want him to receive medical attention, Sayaka, then surrender _now._ ” I say calmly, resting my hand against the hilt of my blade, still embedded into him. She grimaces. 

“What did you do with Hisoki?” She asks.

“Who knows?”

“Is he okay, at least?” She asks. 

“Surrender, Sayaka.” 

“Yuki, _please!_ ” 

I hesitate. She…really does seem sincere in her concern. 

“He’s fine…for now. Though, if we leave him where he is…that can change.” 

She visibly sags in relief. 

“Thank goodness.” She says, standing up as her hands fall away from her throat. I guess she’s finished healing her injury — her hand, too, looks perfectly fine..

“You _are_ aware that I have a hostage?” I ask. “Stand down right now.”

“Ah, so you do.” She asks, faux-surprised. “Well, then do something, then.”

I stay my hand as she takes one step forward, then two. There’s only a short distance remaining from where I’m holding up her still-impaled teammate.

“What’s wrong? Won’t you stop me, Yuki?” She breathes.

_I can’t. I don’t have leverage here. And she knows it. The rules…_

“A fair fight, Yuki. You and me. Let’s settle our score. Put him down. I’ll even put in the qi to heal him. If I win, you stay down. Leave the rest to your teammates. And, well, if I lose here, there’s no hope for them after that, assuming that you’re properly restraining Hisoki, this time.”

“What would stop you from taking Koji and just fleeing?” I ask.

“You’re joking, right? We’re basically even in terms of agility. I can’t escape if I’m also holding his dead-weight.” 

“It would take you moments to revive him.” 

She bites her lip. “That’s…true. You heal him, then. I’m confident in your ability to do so.”

“Why should I do that?” I reply calmly. “ _There is literally no reason for me to do that._ ”

“One of us has to heal him, Yuki!” She shouts. “The longer we wait, the more dangerous this game gets…”

_She’s right. Although I want to win, I shouldn’t risk his life more for it._

“On your word as…my rival, Sayaka. Ceasefire. You won’t try to escape or attack me while I’m healing him. I won’t attack either of you, either, and I’ll heal him too.” 

“I understand. On my word as…heh, your rival, Yuki, I’ll accept that.” She says seriously.

I nod. “And I’ll—“

In a blur, someone comes rocketing from behind a tree and hits Sayaka in the stomach, sending her flying backwards — but, mid-flight, her assailant catches her and slams her hard into the ground.

That was—

“Mari?!” I burst out, surprised.

“Hm…she’s out like a light.” She glances towards me. “Yo. Seems like this should be game, right? If I can sneak up on her, then she’s just not paying attention.”

“Why…why’re you here?” I race over to where Koji is 

“Setsuna sent me.” She grins. “Said she had it covered. She seemed worried about you…for good reason too, you idiot.”

“I had it handled, I think.” Pulling a bit of ninja wire out of my holster, I use it to tie up Koji. Mari does the same, securely binding Sayaka. Once that’s been taken care of, I pull my knife out from Koji and begin healing his injuries. It won’t be hard, as I’d purposefully missed anything too important. It’s just a deep flesh wound. 

“Whatever you say, captain.“

“Captain?” I ask dryly.

“That’s what you are, isn’t it?” She asks, eyes glittering. I roll my eyes, a little amused despite everything. 

“I suppose so. But please, feel free to drop the title.” I say. 

“I was meaning to ask, but you didn’t seem especially concerned… _no permanent or significant injuries,_ captain?” 

I idly note that she’s gone ahead and disregarded my request to stop calling me that. Well, it doesn’t really matter… 

“Well, if I heal them all up after and there’s no scarring or damage, it doesn’t count, right?”

She snorts. “I suppose so.”

It takes about five minutes or so to finish the healing. I invest another five into ensuring that the healing is absolutely perfect — in the end, after all, I don’t want this injury to be so severe that it affects his future as a ninja. Not only would that be breaking the rules, it’d be a pretty terrible thing to do to a comrade. 

“Seems that we have…another few hours to guard them, don’t we?” I ask. “Let’s take them back to base and isolate _all_ of them. After all, they’ve all ‘escaped’, haven’t they? I dare say we can do whatever we want now.” 

“Sounds good.” Mari says. 

The walk back is rather relaxed — I spend most of the time filling in Mari in on everything she’s missed. 

“You’ve had a long day, haven’t you?” She says, amused. “I’m surprised you’re still on your feet.” 

“I know.” I groan. “And we haven’t even had lunch yet. They’re monsters.” 

“Ah, speak for yourself. I haven’t even had breakfast yet.” She sheepishly admits. 

“You’re an idiot.” I retort flatly.

“Think we can get lunch at the same place as last time?” She asks. 

“Eh, sure.” I say. “Assuming Setsuna has no objections…which I doubt.” 

She glances at the blunette hung over her shoulder. “Think they’ll want to join us?” 

I consider it. “Well, you did sort of just completely fuck up her fair fight.” 

“Pfft. Fair? You were barely on your feet. If you want a _real_ fair fight, you both need to be completely fresh.” She replies logically. 

“Well… I can’t deny that.” 

_Though…I might have gone a little overboard._

“And, Yuki…” She says, her voice serious. “Once you get stronger, I’d like to fight you on fair ground, too. I think you could put up…quite the challenge.” 

I contemplate the idea. 

“I’m pretty sure I’d get my ass kicked no matter how much I grew.” 

I’m not joking, either. Mari is outrageously strong as a close-combat fighter. With her qi, I’m confident she could take all five of us — Setsuna, myself, and Sayaka’s entire team — at the _same time._

Fighting her one-on-one? Even with my Ice aberration? Suicide.

“Hm…I wonder about that.” Mari says thoughtfully. 

I don’t answer. 

“Well, we’ll see. Perhaps I just have to give you the correct motivation.” She muses. 

“No.” I reply flatly. 

She sighs gustily. “You didn’t even let me finish.”

“I already know what you’re about to say. No.” 

“Boo.” She pouts, a little childishly. It’s such a massive difference from my first impression of her that I can’t help but smile.

_She’s not that scary, in the end. Now that she’s not being hyper-aggressive, she’s actually…easy to get along with._

Eventually, we arrive back at the prison, where we find Setsuna.

“Everything’s set up.” She confirms. “And I figured you guys would come back here after winning your fight.” 

“You could—“

The sealer smiles, gesturing for us to start walking. “I’m a sensor, after all. You weren’t so far away.”

“Aw, Setsuna. You actually look cute when you crack a smile.” Mari says, grinning. The sealer’s expression immediately goes blank.

“Tch.” She clucks her tongue in disappointment.

“You know, if you hadn’t said anything, she might have kept going for a few seconds longer.” I reply dryly. Setsuna sends me a mildly betrayed look. 

“Meh. We’ll just have to work to make her smile some more.” Mari concludes. We set the bodies we’ve been lugging along this whole time down on the steel ground. 

“That’s something I can get behind.” 

Setsuna, cheeks flushed from the conversation, interjects. “Can we just tie them up already before they wake up and escape?”

_Well, alright, she does have a good point._

After the two-hour mark, our two handlers show up. 

“I believe it’s safe to say that you three have won.” Their instructor says. He’s holding an awake but groggy Hisoki over his shoulder.

Setsuna starts in surprise. I glance at her, confused at her reaction.

“Fuck yeah they did. That was rather enlightening, wasn’t it?” Katsuo says, a smirk on his features. 

“Yep. Well, I’ll go drag them off to our own meeting point and wake them up.”

Without the slightest bit of effort or hesitation, he picks the other two up as well, holding one on each shoulder while he holds Sayaka in a sort of bridal-carry.

“Alright. Was fun to work with you as always.” Our handler says.

“Likewise.”

He takes off, heading off to who knows where.

“Alright. I’m sure you’re all hungry. Since you were all so good and finished ahead of time, you have the next few hours to yourself. Let’s see…meet up at two in front of your houses for debrief and dismissal.”

“Yes, sir!” We shout. 

“Alright. Shoo. I’ve gotta repair the damage you kids did to my little building.” 

_Wait, ‘little’ building?!_

Without further talking, he leaps off towards the gaping hole we’ve left in the roof, leaving us alone.

  
  



	21. (2.2.5) Leashed, Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some calm slice-of-life to top off the action pie of the last few chapters.

#  **2.2.5 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Leashed, Part 5**

“Ah, so that’s what happened.” Setsuna says, taking a bite of another piece of fried meat. I’ve just finished filling her in on the events she’d missed.

“Yeah, a crazy ride, all in all. It sucks, too. I missed so much of the action.” Mari says, sounding disappointed.

“Oh, shut up.” I chastise. “You would just beat everyone on your own, maybe even without your qi.”

She flashes a cocky grin. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Setsuna looks a little less convinced…but, in the end, doesn’t say anything. I’m sure she’s thinking of our first encounter in the forest and how we had neatly outplayed Mari, but that had been when she was heavily underestimating us. 

With her having a more healthy respect for our level of ability, I don’t think we could win. Koji and Hisoki would be borderline negligible in the fight, and Sayaka would still lose hard to Mari’s raw, overwhelming power and agility, the same way I would. But she would certainly target Setsuna first, to prevent the sealer from getting anything off…

We’d lose for sure, but…hm, in the future? I think we could give her a run for her money. 

“Although, captain…” Mari asks. 

_‘Captain’?_ Setsuna mouths at me.

_‘Don’t ask.’_

“Are you really okay?”

“…You’re talking about the waterboarding, right?” 

“What else would I be talking about?” 

I bite into a piece of meat, taking my time chewing. 

“I don’t know.” I eventually finish. “I thought I could ignore it, but…I don’t know if I can.” 

“You can’t just brush aside something like that.” She shakes her head. “That…waterboarding isn’t something you can easily brush aside. It isn’t. That kind of thing isn’t humanly possible.”

I wince at her choice in words. “Maybe, huh…?” 

“There are…people who specialize in helping you recover from that kind of thing. If you want, I can ask around, and—“ 

“I’ll be fine.” I cut her off, holding up a hand. “I am…not scared of my element.” A few seconds later, I finish the shift I’d started a while ago, and a ball of water appears in my hands.

_Thirty seconds, now? We’re making progress, at least…_

Effortlessly, I dismiss the qi, dematerializing the water. “It’s not here that is scared.” I tap my heart. “It’s…”

“Your instincts, right?” Mari finishes, understanding. “Even though you know there’s nothing to be scared of, it isn’t so easy to…” 

“…Speaking from personal experience?” I ask, surprised. 

She flinches. 

_I shouldn’t have said that out loud._

“Sorry.” I apologize belatedly. “I probably shouldn’t have—“ 

“It’s okay.” She says weakly. “But yeah. My Storm Aberration isn’t something that comes without a price.” 

“Is it worth it?” Setsuna asks. 

Mari doesn’t answer right away. 

“…Dunno.” 

…

After we finish, we decide to head to my house. Since we have another hour to wait before our debriefing, I invite Mari inside, too.

But first—

“You need my blood…?”

“Yes. I’ve set up Blood Wards around the perimeter.”

“Huh. Well, alright. Can I watch you use it?”

“Of course.” 

Soon enough, Setsuna’s keyed Mari into the wards, and I let her in. 

“Somehow I’m not surprised at how bare this place is.” She says, hands on her hips. “But it isn’t completely plain, either. Good job, captain.”

“What?”

“After you told me that you two didn’t have hobbies, I expected a boring home life. You know, blank walls and everything.”

I shake my head, mildly amused.

“Sure, Mari. Well, in our mandated ‘team time’, you can go take us shopping for a hobby or whatever else it is we need to liven up our boring home life.” 

She winces. “That… _really_ isn’t…eh, I guess that’s the most I can hope for out of you two. Sure. We’ll go ‘shop for a hobby’.”

“Did I say something weird?” I ask, addressing Setsuna.

“Oooh, please don’t answer that.” Mari interjects. “You’ll encourage his strangeness. Wait, but you’re also…damn it!” 

The sealer looks bemused. 

“Ugh. Well, let’s continue that conversation later, I guess. Well, hobbies are a bust…food? No, you’re probably indifferent…hm, what about…” She mumbles to herself. 

_Something unrelated to ninja life?_

“Ah! Setsuna likes donuts.” I volunteer.

“Well…sure, I suppose that counts.” Mari says. “A little surprising, though.” She mutters under her breath.

“Anyways, what kind of donuts do you like?”

“Um…” Setsuna stammers, blushing a little. “The chocolate ones.” 

“Oh? Where do you go for them?”

I tune them out. Learning that the sealer enjoyed pastries was actually something I hadn’t expected, either. But she can do whatever she wants with her money. 

Well, and mine, when I chip in for my portion.

Once the conversation slows down, we begin doing our own individual training once more to burn through the rest of the time. We head over to a small training ground — Setsuna immediately plops down and begins doing seal-related work, leaving Mari and I to handle more practical training. 

“Alright…efficiency, huh…?” I mutter to myself, taking a cross-legged sitting position. I don’t have too many Wind techniques, but up until now, having raw power was all I needed.

Let’s see…there’s the basic Wind pushing technique…I can create bolts, as well, and a charged version of that…and the basic Wind empowerment, to run faster. I can also flood my sword with qi, allowing it stronger cutting ability. 

That’s…basically it, though. It served me well, but Sayaka, who had a lot more _creativity_ , was able to outperform me for the most part. In particular…that little trick she used to empower her abilities, and that powerful linear laser…those two were particularly successful against me, and are therefore worth picking up and stealing for my own uses.

I’m more interested in the latter than the former, because it specializes more along the power line. I’ve got plenty of control, but I think my Wind style is more suited to overwhelming force over pure control. 

_Hm…_

I stand up, holding both palms outstretched in front of me.

_Set the shape of the spell. Call upon the Wind. Condense, making the attack stronger and more precise. Release._

A beam of wind lances out across the target, slashing into it deeply.

_Hm…not quite. I’m looking for more power, and thinning the area out…but still, not bad for the first try._

After about fifty attempts, I feel as though I’ve made fairly substantial progress. Although it isn’t as precise as Sayaka’s attack, it’s just as powerful, blowing a hole through the wooden dummy.

“Not bad.” Mari critiques. “You improve incredibly quickly.”

I nod. “Qi control isn’t something I struggle with as much. Since it’s a major component of being a really good ninja, I worked on it a ton when I was a kid. As a result, learning new things isn’t too hard. It’s making them combat-worthy that’s the problem, as always.”

_It takes too long to fire, about…three seconds. That’s too long in a fight. I’ll have to iron that out with practice._

Mari nods. “Even so, you’re still at a tremendous advantage right out the gate. My control is only mediocre, and it shows. There’s a reason I’ve focused so much on my close-combat abilities — it gives large returns and doesn’t require a ton of control, just hard work and power.”

“That works for you very well, though, doesn’t it?” I ask.

She shrugs. “I suppose so, but I _am_ two years up on you guys. I’m sure you’ll be at my level, if not higher, in that time.” 

I click my tongue. “I’d better be above a fourth-star level in two years.” I say. 

Fourth-star level is literally average. As strange as it is to think of Mari as an ‘average-level’ ninja, the truth is simply that there’s so much more room to grow. The Academy gives ninja a strong foundation and prepares them for substantial growth, so the process between first and fourth star is usually fairly fast. That being said, half of the Academy graduates don’t make it past that level… 

She grins. “Hey, wait a second. I said I was _officially_ fourth-rank, didn’t I? I’m preparing for the fifth-star examination in three months.”

Ah, the examinations. The first three official ranks of ninja are given automatically, for the most part. By graduating the Academy, you’re considered a first-star ninja. Your next two stars can be given by your handler or master, if you’re an apprentice. 

For the fourth-star rank and beyond, there are instead examinations. Some of it is theoretical — mostly analytical situations, and the like — but the vast majority of it is CQC and similar simulations. You can’t move up the ranks unless you’re able to throw your weight around. 

So if Mari will be applying to take the fifth-star examination, then she thinks that she’s at least a fifth-star level. 

“Have you gotten an analysis from our handler yet?” I ask curiously. “When’s the last time you had an official examination?” 

“Eight months.”

_It’s been eight months since she took her fourth-star?! No wonder she’s so far ahead — she was already at that level while Setsuna and I were still in the Academy!_

“Well, in that case…” I mutter. “You should probably look into developing a method of tracking someone. You don’t have one of those yet, do you?” 

“…I don’t, actually.” She admits.

“Well, that’s an example of something you definitely need to work on. You can’t be a decent ninja without one.” 

“What about you?” She challenges. 

“Well, my ability to sense qi isn’t half-bad, but I’ll admit that I don’t have anything useful, either.” I say. “But I have time to work on that. You don’t.” 

She clicks her tongue. “Yeah, that’s true. I was thinking I’d be able to track someone via bio-electricity, but that hasn’t panned out yet. It takes a bucketload of control.” 

“You can do something like that?” I ask, surprised.

“Yep. Actually, I’m able to passively detect major sources of electricity.” She says proudly.

_That’s…pretty cool, actually. Is that a passive function of her aberration? Hm…_

“It must not be fun to try sleeping through lightning storms, then.” I note.

She winces. “Yeah…”

“Well…in the meantime, try figuring out a method that relies on your power instead of your control. Right now, you just need _something_. You can go for optimized control later.” 

She nods. 

“What about your ninja arts?” I ask curiously. 

She cracks her fingers. “I’m pretty confident there, too.” 

Pointing her hand at one of the farther targets, qi visibly gathers around her hand before leaping off in a dazzling bolt of lightning that absolutely pulverizes the wooden structure before cutting a long gash through the earth for a dozen meters.

“Void above.” I whistle, surprised. All that…with, what, a full second of cast time? She took a third of the time I did to output a far stronger attack…unsurprising, given her level, but…

With a crackling sound, her aura flares up, turning her right iris blue as energy swirls around her arms and legs. 

“This is my Storm Cloak. It’s a critical part of my fighting style.” She clenches her fist, sending a few sparks flying. “It serves as an amplifier, as well as a direct way to shock people.”

“So not only does it make you stronger and faster…it makes many people unable to even block properly, huh…?” I muse. 

“Indeed. Although it’ll only hurt people if I really amp it up. So I won’t use it to that level if I don’t need it.” 

“How high up can you make it go?” I ask curiously.

“Fatal on touch.” The Storm user replies. “It’ll burn through my qi really fast, but…”

_That’s an incredible trick. The inherent lethality behind that…being able to catch someone off guard with something that would kill or mortally wound them…_

“You just need it to work once.” I note.

“Indeed.” She says, smiling maliciously. I gather that it must have worked before; multiple times, perhaps. 

It really highlights that we still have so much to learn about each other. In fairness, we’ve only met as of two days ago, but…

_Perhaps there’s something to that team bonding thing after all._

We work on refining our respective abilities until our internal clocks alert us to the approaching deadline, at which point we head back to the street in front of my house. Our handler is waiting for us there, five minutes early.

“Ah, there you three are.” He eyes us. “Looks like you had a productive _rest_ break.”

I shrug. “If I can keep moving, I can keep training.”

“I didn’t even do shit, so you bet I wanted to do something!” Mari.

“Yes.” Setsuna.

“Well, as promised, I’m here to debrief you all. So I suppose I’ll start with you, Yuki.”

…

“As a team, you guys all worked well together. Good job, all of you.” The faintest hint of pride creeps into his voice. “All of you are dismissed for today, although you should still spend the four hours with each other. We will reconvene once more at the same time here tomorrow, understood?”

“Yes, sir!” We shout out.

“Dismissed.” He turns around and hops away to who knows where, leaving us alone.

“You guys are way better than they were, huh…?” Mari mumbles under her breath. 

“What?” I ask, unsure if I’ve heard her correctly.

She glances at us. “The realization that I could have been partnered with that blue-haired girl’s teammates…they sucked. I guess they’re the normal level, huh? Given that, I’m really happy I got you two after all.” 

I shrug. “You’ve only _just_ realized? You fought Sayaka and I at the graduation examination.”

“Yeah, I fought two of the _strongest_ people there. I didn’t know you two were the strongest. I thought I was fighting average-level ninja graduates.” She winces. “I was not.” 

I shrug.

“So basically, you realized what the actual average graduate level is?” Setsuna asks dryly.

“Yeah, that about sums it up.” 

Well, that’s about the most roundabout simultaneous compliment and insult I’ve ever heard, but…eh, whatever. 

“Well, thanks, I suppose. Anyways, we’re free now. Are you going to take us shopping or wherever?” 

“Sure, why not?”

And, soon enough, she leads us through the main marketplace of the South district. The architecture here is mostly wooden, proof of natural houses rather than a _constructor_ setup, like my own. 

“Setsuna, you should draw as a hobby! You have a lot of natural talent for it.” Mari declares, as we head down one of the streets. At this time of day, it isn’t too crowded — then again, it usually never is, unless there is some kind of event going on.

“Okay.” The sealer replies indifferently. 

_I’m not sure how much of it is talent and how much of it is just extreme familiarity with writing, but I’ll certainly acknowledge that she’s quite good at it._

“As for you, captain…” She frowns. “A hobby that suits you…”

I blink.

“Well, we’ll figure it out…I hope.” She trails off.

“Alright.” I say, bemused.

Firstly, she leads us to an art store. With Mari’s encouragement, Setsuna purchases a simple drawing pad and some colored pencils. 

“See, that wasn’t so bad, right?” She says as we exit the store.

“What am I supposed to draw?” Setsuna asks, sounding honestly confused.

The Storm User sighs exasperatedly. “People. Things. Whatever you find interesting or beautiful.” 

The sealer seems to genuinely consider her words. “Okay.”

“Spend, like, at least half an hour every day doing that. More if possible.”

“Okay.” The black-haired girl repeats, still lost in thought.

For the next three hours, we wander from shop to shop, looking for something for me to do. I haven’t the slightest bit of interest in any board or card games, don’t care for artistic endeavors, and would rather not be burdened by taking care of any living thing. Food and shopping are necessary things and not something I want to go especially out of my way for.

“This is harder than I thought it’d be.” Mari admits. “You really just don’t want to do much, do you?” She asks.

I open my mouth to respond—

“Besides _productive_ endeavors?” 

I close my mouth.

She sighs. “A productive hobby, then? Wait, where’d Setsuna go?” 

“She went into the weapon shop that we passed three buildings ago to restock her supplies.”

“We’re supposed to stick together.” She replies dryly.

“Well, shall we go get her, then? I need to get a new sword, anyways. Sayaka took mine out of commission.” 

“Alright.”

We loop back to the shop in question. Weapons are hung up on racks and shelves. It isn’t hard to spot Setsuna — she’s carrying at least five sets of a dozen knives each in a basket. 

“Setsuna—“ Mari begins.

“I’m almost done.” She puts a sixth set in. 

The brown-haired girl sighs. “Hurry it up, then. We need to get back to finding Yuki a hobby—“ 

I put another set of knives into Setsuna’s basket.

“Not you, too.” Mari groans.

“I mean, we’re already here.” I note, testing the balance of one of the swords on the wall.

She shakes her head ruefully, but doesn’t respond.

“Hey, Yuki.” Setsuna’s voice calls out from a shelf. “Come look at this.” 

I put the sword back where it belongs and head over to my partner.

“Ah.” 

She’s looking at a black longbow. 

“Archery, huh…?” I muse. High-speed, stealthy projectiles over a large range _would_ be useful for me, since most of my strengths lie at close range. Also, skilled bow users have a lot of utility, especially as assassins. However, typical arrows suffer from power issues — namely, they won’t even penetrate those with sufficient power in their aura, nor hard armor, nor most supernatural forms of armor.

Throwing knives, on the other hand, can easily be empowered with a tiny bit of qi, enough to pierce the aura — and it’s a basic technique that any ninja can do. In fact, it’s a requirement for graduating the Academy. 

Furthermore, even the stealth factor of archery is lost against especially observant ninja. However, they tend to work quite well against sensors, as a bow can be fired with no qi at all.

On the other hand, the normal high skill curve to learn archery is almost completely lost to a ninja, who has dramatically superior strength, eyesight, and reflexes to a non-User. And archery can be supplemented through poisons or qi. 

In other words, this is something useful. I hadn’t really thought about adding a second weapon to my toolkit — besides my basic competency with a variety of melee weapons, of course — but this actually neatly fills in a weakness I had — namely, distance-based attacks. While that will eventually be fixed when I manage more power as a Wind user, this will be useful _now._

Additionally, arrow injuries aren’t too challenging to heal. So long as I don’t hit an opponent in the head or heart — I’m not yet able to tackle that issue medically — I should be able to heal their injuries, allowing me to use the bow and arrow for non-lethal takedowns. 

“Good find, Setsuna.” I murmur, picking up the bow and experimentally pulling on the string. There’s a good amount of strength required to pull back on it, but…it isn’t actually that much. And there’s always reinforcement.

“Huh. The bow and arrow…” Mari muses, staring at our find. “Recreational archery _is_ a hobby common amongst many civilians, and can be put to use on the battlefield.”

“Does it have your blessing?” I ask, mostly curious — I’m buying the thing regardless.

“Sure.” She sighs. “As long as you practice against static targets and utilize it as relaxation rather than training, it’s a hobby.”

“Yay.” I say blankly, picking up the bow and purchasing it along with an instruction pamphlet, two dozen arrows and a simple black quiver. It’s quite expensive — but it will probably be worth it. I’ll make more money once I start taking on missions, too, so it’s okay to make this kind of investment. On a whim, I add the sword I’d been testing earlier, not having had any complaints about it. 

We head back to the training ground that we started at. Setsuna immediately begins working on drawing on the side as I scan through the booklet before picking up my bow. 

_Apparently this bow has a hundred-unit draw. That’s…significant. If I want to use it to its full extent in combat, I’m going to need reinforcement._

“Have you ever fired a bow before?” Mari asks curiously, watching as I practice my draw.

“Nope. It isn’t part of the standard curriculum, although we were taught a decent bit about it. I don’t think anyone tried picking it up in our class, at least.” 

“I see. Well, take a shot?” She invites, gesturing towards the target in front of me. It’s about ten meters away — not far at all, I could easily tag the bullseye with a throwing knife from here.

I notch an arrow onto the string and draw, sighting down the line. After a moment of struggling, I flood qi into my arms and pull back to the bow’s full draw with ease.

_It’s just like a qi technique, isn’t it? Set the arrow. Aim the shot. And…release._

The arrow goes flying, lodging itself about eight centimeters off of the center.

“Not bad—“ Mari begins, but I drown out her words, shifting my grip subtly as I draw a second arrow, notch it, draw, and fire. 

“…Wow.” 

_It’s as I thought. With the control and strength of reinforcement, firing a bow is not hard at all._

I stare at the shot planted perfectly in the center.

 _Then again, it’s only a ten meter shot. Any decent ninja can cover that long before I’ve even notched the arrow. And there’s so much more I can do, I think. Yes, this_ is _a worthwhile hobby._

“You really pick up on things fast, don’t you?” Mari asks, admiringly. 

“Shooting accurately at this range is meaningless.” I note dryly. “I’ll have to multiply this distance by three to get anything meaningful out of it, and even longer if I want to be an accurate sniper.”

“True enough.” Mari says. “But remember that you’re supposed to be doing this sort of thing as a _hobby._ ”

“Ah, I suppose so.”

_Although I’m very well aware that I’ll be incorporating this into my combat style, somehow._

_Even so, it isn’t half-bad as a ‘hobby’, I suppose. When you prepare yourself to take the shot, every other concern falls away._

Hm…

Mari winds up doing more training for the rest of the time. I practice with my bow until I’m able to reliably land shots at twenty-five meters, and Setsuna keeps on drawing. 

Eventually, the time limit passes, and Mari heads home, leaving Setsuna and I alone after her farewells. I keep training with my bow, working to hit targets at thirty, then thirty-five meters.

_These are all stationary targets, though._

A few more hours go by, during which I increase my effective range to sixty meters. At this range, though, I notice that I miss fairly often, if only by a few centimeters off of the center. It’s a result of the wind…and that kind of thing is rather hard to account for, even with my enhanced senses and affinity. There’s just…too much variation. 

I’ll have to figure out what to do about that later. There’s…probably something I can do to account for that, given my own affinity. 

The sun has long set already, given the time. But shooting in the dark gives me practice of a different sort entirely. Twenty-four arrows per set, one shot every six seconds, sprint over to the target, retrieve the arrows. Ten meters per second. A full cycle in four minutes. Fifteen per hour, and faster as I get used to it. 

It’s close to a thousand arrows fired when I finally decide to stop, my fingers twitching with pain. I retrieve the arrows and look around for Setsuna, wondering if she’s gone ahead by now.

But, unsurprisingly, she’s still there, a bento for me next to her and the remnants of hers in her lap. Next to her, a portable lamp flickers on and off.

“Thanks, Setsuna.” I say gratefully, as she hands over the bento in question.

“It’s about time we headed home, isn’t it?” She asks gently.

“Alright.” I reply agreeably, cracking open the simple meal while I walk. It’s delicious, although perhaps that’s merely because I haven’t eaten in quite some time. 

And so, the walk home passes by in peaceful, contemplative silence.

  
  
  
  



	22. (2.2.6) Leashed, Part 6

#  **2.2.6 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Leashed, Part 6**

At the door, though, I remember something important. 

_Didn’t I need to meet up with Hikaru today? It’s, what…nine at night? She should still be awake, if not working right now._

“Uh, change of plans.” I say, quickly slipping inside to put my stuff down. “I need to go out to see my master. I’ll be back…to be honest, I’m not sure how long this will take.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No.” I say, strapping on my various holsters. “I don’t think you’ll be allowed to see this. Stay here and study, or something, alright? And don’t wait up for me. I’ll be back, but I don’t know how long it’ll take.”

She frowns, displeased, but understands. “…Alright.”

“Thanks, Setsuna. See you soon.” I depart quickly, hoping to catch Hikaru before she goes to bed.

Travel is fast — the route is very familiar to me, given how much I’ve been over to her house. Soon enough, I’m outside her door. Glancing down at her mailbox, I note that the flag is up — our agreed signal that she’s in. She doesn’t receive mail at this address, so it’s a perfect code for the two of us to use.

“Master, are you in?” I ask, knocking at the door.

“For Gods’ sake, Yuki, I told you to stop calling me that!” Hikaru opens the door, looking mildly flustered. I tilt my head.

_She feels a bit weaker than usual…is something wrong with her? Well, I’ll bring it up after we take care of business…_

I grin. “Good to see you as always, Master.” 

“Ah, you’re alone too? Good. Come inside, Yuki.” She motions me in, and I take my sandals off before following her inside.

“So…I hear that you’ve graduated.” She says, pouring me a cup of tea. I quickly analyze it with my qi before tasting it — something I’d jokingly begun doing after her little paralytic stunt, but it became a habit once she encouraged me to keep doing it. 

I snort. “Graduation dates are planned _well_ in advance. You knew exactly what day I graduated.” 

“I did.” She admits. “Just checking to make sure you’re awake and alert, because the next few moments of your life are going to be very important.” 

“Blood Vow, right?” 

“Amongst other things. This is really serious, Yuki. A lifetime commitment. Are you sure you’re ready for this?” 

“You of all people know how much I’ve thought about this, right?”

Over the course of nearly two years, I’ve come to see Hikaru as someone genuinely trustworthy and respectable. She has her bad habits, like occasionally forgetting to ask my consent before doing one thing or another, or making fun of me more often than I care for, but she’s also never led my astray and has otherwise been immensely useful.

_She taught me how to properly hide my Ice. Without her, I’d probably be dead right now._

There are other things, too. My ongoing medical training helps me ensure that I can save Setsuna, too, should I ever need to. And her assistance training my qi control has been invaluable. She is, without a doubt, the greatest teacher I have ever had. 

“I trust you.” 

She smiles. 

“Alright.” 

_Blood vows work on a similar concept to seals — in fact, this is true of just about every ritual. First, the participants connect their qi directly through the use of blood. After that, they recite an aria that both parties find meaning in — truly mean, in other words, so you can’t lie — and this creates a sort of vow that exists directly in your spiritual core. You can’t break it. Like…you literally can’t. It becomes a fundamental part of you, the same way a personality trait is. An absolute order that can not be broken._

_And, because you have to truly mean it — you can’t be forced into it, too. Good luck trying that. Additionally, the only reasonable way it can be cancelled is by one person’s death. As you can imagine, this kind of thing is used sparingly. It’s incredibly powerful, but extremely limiting._

_Tantric rituals work like these, too, although those create real effects. A blood vow…is more of an unbreakable promise, so to speak._

“How many apprentices have you bound to?” I ask, mostly out of curiosity. She snorts.

“You’d be the only living one, of course. I can’t risk a cross.”

_That’s right. It’s extremely risky to swear more than one blood vow, due to the possibility of conflicting orders. That would drive a person to insanity._

_So by swearing this vow to Hikaru…I can’t make a blood vow to another person — at least, not one that puts me in a lower position. Otherwise, there’s a possibility that they could have mutually exclusive requests or orders, which would literally tear my soul apart with the contradiction._

“I’m ready. Are you?” She asks.

“I am.” 

We pull out our own respective ritual knives and slash our right hands, blood dripping onto the floor. Then, we clasp them against each other.

_“I, Hikaru Kozakura of Alune, hereby swear allegiance to the sacred pact of master and apprentice. I will look out for my apprentice’s best interests, teach him what I am able and willing to, and defend him with my life. I shall not turn against him, with weapon nor with will. Hear my words, Yuki of Alune! By the agreement of the gods above, seal this holy covenant!”_

_“I, Yuki of Alune, hereby swear allegiance to the sacred pact of master and apprentice. I will look out for my master’s best interests, do for her what I am able and willing to, and defend her with my life. I shall not turn against her, with weapon nor with will. Hear my words, Hikaru Kozakura of Alune! By the agreement of the gods above, seal this holy covenant!”_

A flash of crimson fills the room as the blood vow is formed. Instantly, I feel my entire being change — a mental chain of sorts being placed around my neck, constantly reminding me of my vow. However…it doesn’t feel heavy at all. That makes sense, given that I had literally zero intentions to break Hikaru’s trust. 

“So? How’s it feel?” Hikaru asks, intrigued. 

“Ah, I don’t feel much different.” I say truthfully.

“That’s a good thing.”

“So, _only living one?_ ” I ask curiously. She makes a face.

“Yeah, you’re going to have to drink with me before I go into that story. It’s not a pleasant one.” 

“I’ll take you on that offer at some point.” I say, stretching. Things don’t feel especially different. 

“There’s something else, Yuki.” 

“Right, you mentioned that earlier…?” 

She looks me in the eyes. “I need you to promise that you’re going to keep this one a secret, Yuki. Including from Setsuna.”

“…Don’t trust her?” I ask curiously.

She shakes her head. “The ramifications of what I’m going to give you would be _enormous_ for society, and _not_ in a good way. This absolutely needs to be hidden, and can’t _ever_ get out. This needs to go with you to your grave, Yuki. Understood? I don’t care how you hide it, but you _must._ I’m not joking when I say this could seriously change society, and _not_ for the better.” 

Whatever it is, it must be an incredible secret. 

“I accept. But, why tell me?” I ask.

She smiles. “Because you’re my favorite apprentice, and I don’t want you to die. And this could save your life.” 

I contemplate her words. “What is it, then?”

“Follow me.” She turns, heading towards…the storage room area? Ah, she must—

Yes, she has the same trick I used — a hatch, down into a basement area that shouldn’t exist. 

The walls are clearly reinforced with steel, and there’s a substantial suppression array set up on all the surfaces. When the hatch slides closed, a lamp turns on — automated with seals, perhaps?

_What a strange, but fascinating security system. And it must have been done with seals._

Whatever's here is important. Extremely important. I can’t help but tense up a little, looking around cautiously.

In front of me…is nothing more than a desk and a chair. A slim, long silver case rests on top — a syringe holder, I think. So whatever is in there is medicinal in nature?

“Yuki, what do you know about qi absorption?” My master asks, looking at me with a serious gaze.

“An extremely challenging skill that requires incredibly high levels of qi control…and _knowledge_ of how to do it. If it just required control, all the elite ninja could do it — yet, only a few people are even rumored to possess the ability, yourself included.”

“Alright. Of the three aspects of qi, which do you think are affected by qi absorption?”

“Potentia and Psychia.” I reply promptly. 

“Why not Etheria?”

“Because your _nerves_ can barely handle releasing Etheria — drawing it in isn’t something your body is meant to do. You’d destroy them completely.” I analyze.

“Correct. Now, would that be an effective deterrent for most ninja?”

“Um…yes?” I say, trying to figure out where she’s headed.

“Good. Now, how about someone with an inherent regeneration factor?”

_Oh. Oh!_

_Having an aberration that regenerates you is different from healing. Medics can only fix damage — not replace. If you tear your nerves apart, you’ll never be able to use them the same way again, if at all. Regeneration is different, and it’s why Hikaru is so valued. She can heal damage that normally wouldn’t be able to be fixed — for example, regrowing someone’s limbs. In other words, medicine_ fixes _. Regeneration_ replaces. 

_Therefore, regeneration aberrations are vastly superior when handling traumatic injury. So destroyed nerves wouldn’t be an issue!_

“You’re able to absorb Etheria, Hikaru?” I ask softly. 

She nods. “I am. And I’ve had so much practice that it no longer tears apart my coils to do so. Now, your aberration…also has an inherent regenerative factor, doesn’t it?” 

My jaw drops. “Are you…are you implying that I’ll be able to absorb Etheria too?” I whisper in disbelief.

“Correct. I think that anyone with an inherent regeneration factor can do it safely. Your Ice aberration is one of those…well, at least your manifestation of it. It isn’t just you — myself, obviously, and perhaps a few others. But…you see the problem in _my_ case, don’t you?”

“You can transfer your regeneration to others.” I breathe out. “Therefore, in theory, anyone could absorb Etheria, as long as you regenerated them after.”

She flashes me a grim smile. “That’s step one. Now, I want you to analyze the contents in the case.” 

Hesitating, I open the case in front of me. 

“This is…” I run a blue-tinted hand over the syringe, a sharp shock greeting my supernatural senses. “It’s...!” 

“Yes. It’s Etheria in liquid form.” She says. “I was able to convert it from an energy state into a liquid one through a lot of processing, medical ninja arts, alchemy, chemistry, and a couple of other fields. Don’t ask — the details are _well_ beyond your understanding, and barely within mine. Now, we’re almost done — just a few more questions.”

_Etheria in liquid form? That’s…that’s just something else…_

“What do you think would happen to an ordinary ninja if they consumed this? Or, more accurately — injected it into themselves?” Hikaru asks.

“I think they’d probably die.” I admit. “But…I’m not too sure…? That’s a pretty theoretical question, or…well, I guess it _was…_ ”

“No, you’re right. Even a strong ninja would be torn apart from the inside by the infusion of Etheria. The human body isn’t designed to hold more than a certain amount, let alone this much. If they were to do something like this, it’d have to be a tiny amount at time — maybe a hundredth of this dose.” She indicates the ampule. 

_A_ ** _hundredth_** _of that dose?! Just how potent is it?_

“Now…what about someone with a regeneration factor?” She asks.

The ramifications hit me like a train.

 _Hikaru’s right. If this got out, it’d be really,_ really _bad for her. She’d be basically permanently enlisted to plug every decent ninja with an infusion of Etheria. Forget research or healing — those aren’t as important as the potential benefits of having ninja with excess Etheria._

“I...I’d guess that wouldn’t be an issue.” I say.

“You don’t need to guess. I’m living proof.” Hikaru says. “You’re pretty familiar with my aura, aren’t you?” 

“Yes…I’ve been thinking that you felt weaker than usual.” I mutter. “I…suppose that isn’t the case, then?”

“Oh, not at all.” She says seriously. “What you’re feeling is my _suppressed_ aura.”

I gape. “Your — _suppressed_ aura?” 

She releases her suppression. I can instantly tell the difference — not simply because of the incredibly oppressive heavy weight that falls upon my sixth sense, but — 

_“You’re literally glowing!?”_

Her irises now gleam a golden brown, clearly visible even in the near-darkness. It’s subtle, but I can _feel_ the latent energy radiating off of her as if I was standing next to a roaring fireplace made of qi. 

It feels — almost like I’m _drowning_ in it— 

“This is my real aura.” She says. “I literally can’t suppress it completely any longer. Good thing I’m not on any more missions, because my stealth is through the window.”

_I’ll say. She’d shine out like a beacon in the light, even with her suppressed aura. Gods above. I think that if she’d wanted to kill me, the sheer power differential would stop my heart…!_

“What other effects are there?” I ask.

“A _massive_ improvement in my physical abilities, as well as my qi. My regeneration is nigh-instant, even faster than it used to be.” 

“So…basically everything, then, at the cost of your ability to suppress your qi?”

“Yes.” She replies.

“I see.” I say, shaking my head. “So…why tell me about this, again?” I ask.

In response, she closes the case and picks it up, staring at it contemplatively.

“This is yours, Yuki. What do you want to do with it?” 

I stare at the closed case — a gift representing priceless knowledge, and incredible opportunities. It isn’t so simple as a mere power-up — what she’s offering is…a complete change in the way I see the world. 

“Why…why are you offering this to me?” I ask nervously.

She gives me a serious look. 

“Practically speaking, it wouldn’t be particularly challenging to get more of this, although I’d leave some dead spots in the forest. This…isn’t a lot of energy, relatively. But, as for why _you?_ You’re going to be my apprentice, and I want you to have every starting advantage you can so you don’t die.”

_There’s some weight behind that story…but, for now, I’ll accept her words at face value and assume there are no other reasons._

Alright, let’s think about this.

_The ability to absorb life energies._

It has massive potential. Absolutely massive potential. I’m already a fairly strategic and sneaky fighter — what I need is _power_ , and that’s what a booster shot of Etheria would do for me. A passive, substantial power-up to my abilities. Using this would instantly shoot me up multiple ranks — three, maybe even four or five rankings in pure power alone. A little finesse, and I’d instantly be a seventh-star ninja. 

And it wouldn’t need to stop there — I could keep taking more and more. Sure, I’d still have poor levels of variety and experience, but I’d have massive power, rivaling the levels of elite ninja within a few months, easily. After all, Potentia and Psychia is a _transcription_ of your Etheria. Enhancing your Etheria, a feat usually not easily possible…let alone by a margin like this…

But this…

I’d be strong enough at that point to reveal my Ice affinity. With that threat level, they wouldn’t have any choice but to leave me alone, especially if I was cooperative. And I’d happily use my powers for missions and war, so long as they left me be.

This gift, in other words, is basically everything I could have wanted, given to me in a wrapped package. All I have to do is accept it. But…

_But if I do that…then what was the purpose of all my struggle?_

_Forget that, what’s…_

_I don’t_ want _a life like that. I don’t want a life where I’m just…given everything like that. I’m already in such a good starting spot — the Ice aberration is incredibly powerful, when you disregard the massive issue of needing to hide it. It is a potent materialistic_ and _internal aberration — the ability to create Ice in the real world, and the regenerative/reinforcement properties it provides me, not to mention the Soul Veil…in terms of raw power, it’s not quite Mari’s Storm element, but far more versatile._

_If I’m just handed even more on a silver platter…what’s my purpose?_

“I’ll hold on to it.” I say. 

_I’m not such a fool that I’d turn it down entirely. It could be incredibly useful someday._

_But not today. Not today._

Hikaru smiles. “I figured you would say that. Would you like for me to seal it onto you?” 

“Alright. My blood would work as the best medium for this, I assume?” 

“Naturally. If you could?” The medic pulls out a glass vial from her pocket. Channeling a bit of Wind, I cut my palm, letting my blood flow into the container. 

“Thank you.” She says when the vial is close to full, pulling it away. I heal the cut silently — it takes only a few seconds. After that…

“Write the seal over my heart. It’s probably the most appropriate.” I suggest.

She assents, and I pull my shirt off as she withdraws a sealing brush and tarp from two of the drawers in the table. I lay down on it, and she carefully, painstakingly draws the sealing array on my chest. It takes a few minutes — once she’s done, I double and triple check with a mirror.

“Looks good.” I say.

“We’ll see. Ready?” 

“I am.” 

She holds the case against my chest as I channel qi to the seal, opening a gate to the _second dimension_ — the sealing realm. The lines of blood light up, bathing the room in a crimson glow.

And, slowly but surely, the case slides in, through the gateway on my chest into the other dimension. 

Once the box is through, I cut the qi off, and the seal fades away. 

_How Setsuna puts up with that every time is beyond imagination. That was incredibly unnerving._

“Well, there’s that.” I mutter. 

“Ah, mind unsealing and resealing it in front of me? If there’s any issues, I can _probably_ save your life.” 

_Probably?!_

I run through the procedure for unsealing it — it’s not particularly complicated, just channeling qi to the right areas — and the gateway opens once more, the case popping out and landing on my chest. 

Then I seal it again.

“No issues.” I say, relieved that the testing is over. “That was all, right?”

“That’s all I had…unless you had something else?” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have quite a few spin-offs out now! Right now, we have:
> 
> Defiance -- A Hikaru Kozakura canon spinoff that features kid Hikaru and Katsuo!  
> Team Dragon -- A parallel universe where Sayaka lives with Yuki, instead of Setsuna! 
> 
> There's also Department of Records, which contains some notes and juicy statistics for characters. 
> 
> If you're enjoying this story (given that this is chapter 22, I'd certainly hope so!) then you might be interested in viewing those, too!
> 
> There's more in the works, too. :)


	23. (2.2.7) Leashed, Part 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The inevitable fall-out from what happened earlier.

#  **2.2.7 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Leashed, Part 7**

“Ah, right.” I can’t believe I’d almost forgotten, but…it’s been hinted at multiple times now, hasn’t it? “How do you know my handler?” 

She blinks. “Huh? Well, Katsuo and I were teammates back in the day. Actually, our team layout was sort of the way yours is — a combat powerhouse, a utility specialist, and a combat medic.” 

Teammates, huh? I hadn’t thought of our team quite like that, but it makes sense. My primary role is combat medic, rather than utility…although you could arguably call a combat medic a utility specialist. 

“I assume he was the combat powerhouse?” I ask.

“Naturally.”

Unsurprising. It’s the only way someone could keep up with Mari so easily. It also puts him in a unique position to teach all of us — as the only person who can easily handle Mari, as well his connection with Hikaru, who is in turn connected with Setsuna and I.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me anything about his steel aberration? He hasn’t spoken much about it, despite Mari’s efforts to get him to.” I say.

“Well…his is super interesting, actually. It’s a combination materialistic/internal aberration, the same as yours. The materialistic half is simple — he can produce metal, specifically steel, into various shapes. As for his internal, well, it makes him much stronger and vastly more durable, and also happens to totally ignore electricity and lightning attacks. Wind tends to do little-to-nothing to him, as well, although stronger piercing attacks will hurt. He has abnormally heightened fire and cold resistances, although heat gets to him after a while. As a synergetic element, Earth is what he specializes at, although he’s _awakened_ Water specifically to nullify his Fire-based weaknesses. That good?”

“Yup.” It gives me a decent idea of what to expect from our handler. “So he’s primarily a hand-to-hand specialist?” 

“Correct, but he’s proficient with a whole bunch of weapons as well.”

_Unsurprising._

“Got it. Yeah, that should be everything I need to know.” 

What an incredibly powerful defensive and offensive aberration. My inherent reinforcement traits offer me a bit of generalized resistance as well as an immunity to cold, but…the ability to _totally ignore_ lightning? No wonder he was made Mari’s handler. She couldn’t hurt him if she tried — and even her physical strength is nullified by his raw defense.

_Come to think of it, she’d broken her hand and arm against him, hadn’t she?_

What amazing defenses. And he’s a close-combat specialist? He might be nigh-unbeatable in close range, then. And I’m sure he has countermeasures for long-distance fighters, too. 

_That’s the kind of fighter I need to be. Prioritizing my strengths, and having countermeasures for my weaknesses. And countermeasures for the usual countermeasures._

_But…what are my weaknesses?_

My mind flashes to Mari. _Definitely high-speed characters like her. My Ice element would help, but…hm, the best thing I can think of for that is area-denial. Some kind of threat that they can’t ignore._

_Overwhelming power is probably another concern. Both of those weaknesses can be worked on by getting stronger and faster, myself. A threat they can’t ignore, huh…?_

“Master, you’re competent in poisons, aren’t you?”

“For gods’ sake Yuki, I told you to stop calling me that — yes, I am. Thinking of adding that skill to your toolkit?” She asks, somewhat exasperated.

“Yeah. Right now I lack _lethality_.” 

She shrugs. “That kind of thing will grow with time, especially with your Ice affinity.” 

“Yes, but I can’t use my Ice affinity in 99% of cases.” I reply, a little frustrated. My aberration would be so damn useful if I could only _use_ it! 

“Then focus on your Wind element.” She advises. 

_Well…Wind does have substantial inherent lethality. So perhaps I_ should _focus on it for now? Since I can’t_ use _Ice most of the time, maybe I should just rely on my Wind element for now until I get a bit stronger. Ice, after all, offers quite a bit passively. Even if I don’t train it, it will still be useful._

I sigh. “It feels like I’m abandoning my identity.” 

“Suck it up.” She replies indifferently. “You’ll be just like the other thousands of ninja with no aberration, except you have substantial passive powers and a case of Etheria stored in you. You could be much worse off.”

_It’s a little hard to stomach that coming from you, o Goddess of Mercy, but…you also do have a very good point. Setsuna doesn’t even have the ability to control her own innate qi, and she’s doing just fine._

“Fair enough.” I agree. 

“Is that all?” She asks, amused. 

“I can’t think of anything else.” I nod.

“Very well. It’s about time you head back home, then, isn’t it?” 

“Yep.” I say. “By the way, did you have any kind of security for this? No one can just…come down here, can they?” 

She laughs. “Of course I have. Haven’t you noticed I’ve always been sure to do something at the door?” 

I try thinking back to our interactions. At the…? 

“…You’ve always made it a point to explicitly invite us in, now that I recall…” 

“Yes. The entrance to the house is sealed unless I invite you in.” 

_Huh. There’s a_ lot _of room for experimentation there…_

“That sounds more complicated than ‘the basics’ of sealing.” I say dryly. 

“Oh, absolutely. Katsuo designed and wrote the setup for me. I have no idea how, or what he did to make it work.” 

_Huh. That’s pretty neat. I should pass that on to Set—_

A strange feeling passes through me.

_…Or not. I guess that telling Setsuna about her security system wouldn’t be towards her best interests._

With that mystery solved, we head back to the hatch. Hikaru pops it open with a controlled flow of Wind, and we leap back into the main part of her house. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Hikaru.” I say, waving, as I step out. 

“Yep. I’ll see if I can’t find an introductory book for poison lying around, or something…” She’s lost in thought as she closes the door. 

_Well. There’s that taken care of. And apparently, she hasn’t completely dismissed the possibility of me learning poisons, either._

The trip back home is uneventful, and soon enough, I’ve made it back home. I open the door, but…

_…Setsuna’s not in?_

That’s unusual, but it’s happened before. She tends to go on late-night trips to the library, or to pick up food. In this case, it is…

“Ah, you’re back?” She greets me cheerfully a few minutes later, holding a paper container. I can smell the scent of something sweet…

_The latter, then._

“Pastries again? I ask, amused. “You’re going to get fat at this rate.” 

She rolls her eyes as she pops one into her mouth. 

“I guess you don’t want any, then?” 

“Maybe just one.” I acquiesce. Her lips twitch into a smile as she offers me one, and I quickly take it before she decides to change her mind. 

“I had a lot of fun today.” She says haltingly. “It was…it was nice to just do…things, without having to worry about training or anything.” 

“It was.” I say agreeably, smiling at the memory. 

“You seemed happy, but I just wanted to make sure…”

I wince. “I think the only way I’ll be able to see if I’m really okay or not is to…well, I’m going to take a shower. We’ll see if…I can handle it.” 

“I’m coming with you.” Her tone brooks no argument. 

“Okay.”

…

I gasp, stumbling out of the flow of water. Setsuna cuts it off a moment later, catching me before I slip and fall. 

“When it hits your face…” 

I tilt my head back. “Gods…damn it…” 

_This…I can’t be weak like this! I refuse! Not after everything I’ve been through! Something so small and insignificant will not hold me back!_

“This is unacceptable.” 

“Yuki?”

“Follow me, Setsuna. We’re going for a walk.” 

“U-Uh, o-okay?” 

…

Setsuna audibly gasps when we reach our destination — one of the waterfalls, about twenty minutes away. It’s small, relatively speaking, only about fifteen meters high, but the pool of water it drains to is plenty for my purposes. 

“That…isn’t that too much?” 

I flash her a pained smile, moving towards the pool. “Everything is too much right now. The only way I can break this fear is to force myself to overcome it with too much.”

She clenches her fists. “If…if you’re positive. I’ll…be here for you, okay?” 

My fragile smile turns marginally more genuine.

“Thank you.” I strip off everything except for my underclothes, then turn to face the water.

“Are you…sure?”

“Of course I am.”

“Then why are your hands shaking?”

I stare down at my trembling fingers, realizing that my body refuses to take the step forward necessary. 

“Setsuna…I need you to—“ 

A hard impact from behind sends me falling, and I remember to force my breath out as I hit the water. 

**dROwnInG**

_Shut up! I’m fine! I’m…fine!_

In the pitch black of the night, I can’t see anything at all underneath the surface. But…for the most part, I’m able to keep hold of my sanity…

…until I need to take a breath. The second water slips past my lips, everything goes straight to hell— 

**i’M dYInG dYINg DYInG DYING**

**gET mE OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT**

And then I’m out. Between gasps, I realize that Setsuna is holding my arm, clutching me to her.

_She…pulled me out…?_

“T-Thank you…” I rasp, water dripping all over her. 

“I-I-It’s no p-problem…” She squeezes me tight, then lets go, fumbling at her hip holster for a seal. With a crack of displaced air, a small campfire ignites. 

“Ah…you must be cold, huh?” In the light of the fire, I can see her shift closer, trembling. “Sorry about all of this, Setsuna.” 

“It’s o-okay.” She stutters, her teeth chattering. “H-How…was it…?”

“I couldn’t think at all.” I say quietly, drawing on my Veil a little. “The second water goes down my throat, I completely lose my sanity.” 

“A-Ah…so now what…?” 

I grimace, standing up and facing the water. 

“Now I…keep trying.”

…

It’s close to an hour later when I finish my thirtieth attempt, slowly dragging myself out of the water. 

“N-Not good…” 

It’s gotten a little better, in that I don’t go completely insane anymore. I can…just barely hold on to my mind. But those instincts don’t want to go away, because I’ve felt the honest, primal fear of death…

_How can I break something like that…?_

“I’m going to try again.” 

“Okay.” 

It’s impossible to look at Setsuna’s face, to see the pity and sadness written there. She hasn’t told me to stop yet, but it’s clear that she wants to. 

_But I’d say no, even if she did!_

“…Wait, please!” A voice calls out from behind us. I turn, surprised.

“Sayaka?” I grimace. Has she been watching? How did she even find us? No, why is she here at all? Of all the people I would have wanted to see me in this state, she ranks possibly at the bottom of the list. “What—“ 

“…What are you doing here?” Setsuna asks coldly.

“…I just…” The blunette looks frightfully pale. “I wanted to…talk to him…” 

“Haven’t you done enough already?” The sealer turns, a shimmer of qi running down her arm before she lifts her hand, a knife pointed forward. “Look, you—“ 

“Setsuna.” I rest a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay.” 

She trembles, then lashes out to the side. A split second later, a nearby boulder explodes into dust. 

_Did she…did she just throw the knife?! That…what the hell? I couldn’t even track it!_

“Hurt him again…and I will make you _pay_ for it.” She whirls away furiously, leaving.

I stare wide-eyed at her for a moment. “Sorry about that. That was really uncharacteristic of her.” 

Sayaka manages a weak smile. “No…it wasn’t.” 

_Huh?_

“Well, what exactly is it that you wanted? Why are you even out here?” 

“I…couldn’t sleep.” She frowns. “I’ve been walking outside for a while.”

“Ah. Well, it works out anyways. I wanted to apologize to you.” I wring my shirt out. 

“You…wanted to apologize…to _me_?” 

“Yes.” I think about the injuries I’d inflicted on her near the end of the exercise. “I think I went a little overboard.” 

“…You’re…you aren’t serious, are you?”

“What?”

“Yuki.” She says slowly. “I literally tortured you. You’re outside now at this ungodly time, trying to shake off the psychological effects. And you’re apologizing for a few physical injuries that, while very painful, were healed in less than a minute?”

“…I hadn’t thought of it like that. Well, you did what you had to do, and it was a pretty useful experience.” I clench my fists. “I found out that I was weaker than I thought I was. It was a good reality check.”

“Why…why are you able to speak like this?! Doesn’t it matter to you at all?!” 

I tilt my head. “No?”

Her fingers dig into her dress. “You…that is most definitely not _normal_.” 

I smile slightly. “I suppose so.” 

“A-Anyways…” She shakes her head. “An apology is meaningless for what I’ve done to you…so I have a solution instead.”

“A solution?” 

She nods. “Breathing underwater — _without_ external expression of qi.” 

My eyes widen. “You know how to do that? Wait, when did you Awaken Water? You only knew Wind back in the academy?”

She laughs. “I still only know Wind. But Water isn’t the only element that will allow you to breath underwater, silly. After all, you need—“

“Air.” I whisper. “Of course. I’m an idiot. I’ve already done most of this before, haven’t I…?” Without hesitation, I jump into the water.

_I already know how to manipulate the different parts of air. And there’s oxygen in the water! I just need to keep the water out of my throat, extract the air…that’s complicated, but I think I can do it. I just can’t swallow. Instead, I’ll—_

I take a mouthful of water in. 

_Now if I just…split the oxygen out from the water, and absorb it, then—_

I blow out a stream of water, the leftover air rushing into my body. 

_This is it!_

I take in another mouthful of water, and split it once more.

_I can…I can do this!_

The third successful breath confirms it for me, and I quickly climb out of the makeshift pool. 

“I’m…not scared anymore?” I stare at my steady hands, then look up. “Thank you, Sayaka.”

She smiles sadly. “It is quite literally the least I could do. I’m truly sorry, Yuki.” 

“It’s okay.” 

The blunette winces. “I’ll…see you around sometime.” 

“Alright.” 

She leaves without another word, dress flapping in the breeze. Moments later, footsteps crunch in the gravel behind me.

“She helped you…?” 

“She did.” 

“…Hm…” 

I turn around to face Setsuna. “I’m okay now, I think.” 

She has a complicated expression on her face, one I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. It’s like she can’t tell whether or not she’s happy or sad, a strange contradiction between her eyes and mouth. 

“Alright.” She kicks water over the campfire, extinguishing it effectively. “Want to go home, then?” 

“Yeah. And Setsuna?”

“Huh?”

“Thank you. Really.”

She smiles softly. “No problem.” 

_…._

Soon enough, we’re back in bed. 

“Yuki, what’s this?” Setsuna asks, tracing the seal on my chest.

 _Well, I can’t tell her about it. Even if I wanted to, actually — it would_ definitely _be against Hikaru’s interests._

But I don’t want to lie to her, either. 

“Blood vow.” I say instead. She frowns, but accepts the explanation.

“…Kay.” She murmurs sleepily. “You’re…you’re not going to leave, are you…?” 

_What’s…what’s with this? She sounds…vulnerable, all of a sudden._

“Nope.” I say, instead. It’s a half-truth, at best, since I have no idea what the future holds. But she accepts it anyways, perhaps knowing that I can’t possibly mean it, wrapping her arms around me and surrendering herself to sleep.

_Setsuna…_

_It’s not the first time I’ve seen her vulnerable — hell, the very first time she slept over, as well as a handful of times between…but I’m still not any closer to figuring out why. I haven’t asked. I’ve figured that she’d open up to me over time, but she hasn’t said anything about it._

_I don’t think the problem is that we aren’t close enough — we’re paired at the hip, most of the time. So…what is it, then?_

_I hope I have the chance to find out, sometime._

  
  



	24. (2.2.8) Leashed, Closing

#  **2.2.8 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Leashed, Closing (Hikaru’s POV)**

As it turns out, I don’t happen to have an introductory book to poisons lying around. In fact, I’m forced to make a trip all the way to the South Library in order to find one — thankfully, it isn’t too far away. The run is refreshing, although I purposefully have to tone down my strength in order to avoid cracking the stones underneath me. Reinforced construction or not, a misstep would shatter the earth I step on.

_ This Etheria is…quite troubling, sometimes. _

Ah, well. I’ll just have to make the best of it. It is certainly useful at times, even though I’ve been getting strange looks more often than not from the ninja who are able to sense my presence.

I pick up the book without fuss, the librarian on hand giving me a nearly worshipful look. It’s a bit irritating, given how often I see her — but, well, if my reputation  _ inspires  _ people, as strange as that is, I’d better keep it up.

_ Even if I hate it, myself. And here I’d just wanted to be a researcher. _

I can’t help but find myself lost in thought on the run back. His words keep reverberating through me.

_ “Why…why are you offering this to me?” _

Ah, Yuki. We’ve grown quite close in the nearly two years I’ve known him. To be honest, it’s a bit closer than most apprentices get to their Masters. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t truly minded him calling me ‘Master’ all this time, as much as I hate the formality of all of it.

_ Distance creates objectivity. _

Although…it’s perhaps a little too late for that. Ah, damn it all. All my research and talent, and I still haven’t been able to fix  _ that.  _

I hope he isn’t wondering if I had any ulterior motives in offering him the Etheria. Hopefully he realizes that the vow we swore would prevent me from harming him — I genuinely  _ do _ think he can handle the Etheria, after all, even if it would hurt like a bitch. But in the end, he didn’t decide to consume it on the spot, which is what I would have preferred. I could have assisted him with my own powers, and he would have been stronger. If I had claimed him publicly…perhaps strong enough to reveal his affinity, even. 

_ That power I gave him was definitely not just a ‘drop in the bucket’.  _

That took me half a year to collect and process, even with my talents — in fact, it’s the second, much larger, part of the dose I had foolishly given myself, in a moment of curiosity.

_ And he hadn’t consumed it.  _

I won’t let you die, Yuki. Not when you remind me so much of what I could have had. 

I won’t let anyone die on me.

_ Aiko… _

  
  



	25. (2.3.1) Black and White, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to take a moment now to remind everyone that the actions and attitudes of my characters do not necessarily reflect my own attitudes and ethics. 
> 
> ...You can tell because instead of spending sixteen hours training to be a ninja, I'm writing this story.

#  **2.3.1 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Black and White,** **Part 1**

The rest of the week passes without too much incident. There aren’t any more especially interesting exercises — now that we have a better idea of our weaknesses, he begins working with us to hammer them out, and helps us innovate new ideas and tricks. All of us are drilled mercilessly on speed and strength, wearing our bodies down with intense exercise as well as CQC to strengthen our hand-to-hand. It’s where we find out he can, with complete ease, handle all three of us in a straight physical fight, even with reinforcement. 

With Mari’s help, I begin creating my own specialized enhanced CQC style — a mixture of the physical and ninja arts. It isn’t especially complex, but it should give a nasty surprise to anyone who tries to fight me. And, best of all, it’s simple enough for me to use at level two reinforcement, meaning I won’t sacrifice all of my strength and speed to use it. My Wind abilities start seeing some substantial progress as well, integrating Sayaka’s techniques into my own repertoire, as well as another trick or two. 

My archery has been coming along very smoothly — although my progress hasn’t been as rapid as that first night, it is now something I can utilize in battle. 

Under Hikaru’s careful nighttime instruction, I progress rapidly with both healing and poison. We haven’t brought up the Etheria issue again, but the thought hovers over my mind. And, in secret, I continue working on my Ice techniques.

Mari improves her power in all regards, using the old steel prison as target practice. It’s mostly demolished within a few hours. The fact that it had stood for so long was a testament to our handler’s strength, though. 

Speaking of the man, we do learn quite a bit about him over our period of training. Takeshi Katsuo, an eighth-star elite ninja. He specializes in hand-to-hand and weapon usage, and backs it up with a strong sealing background as well. Defensively, he combines extremely potent physical defense with healing, making him a massive tank in battle on par with Hikaru. In his old team, he played Mari’s role as the combat powerhouse with Hikaru Kozakura. That’s something I already knew, but it’s still fascinating. I can’t help but wonder if he’s heard about our association yet — it’s been kept pretty secretive, so he might not know about it.

Setsuna has gotten appreciably stronger, too. Our handler has spent quite a bit of time with her training a certain quality he refers to as  _ battlefield sealing _ . 

In other words, how well can Setsuna make seals in the middle of active combat? Obviously, there’s no time at all to write, so she can only stick with the prints she knows how to do. But printing in the middle of combat is atrociously hard. To prevent fatal mistakes, she is only allowed to print a dummy seal that won’t do anything no matter how hard she fucks it up — although, to her credit, she’s never failed to print it properly. I guess those safety standards she’s held herself to have been firmly established as a habit.

So, while dodging, running, and outright fighting, Setsuna must print the dummy seal on her knife’s hilt and throw it at our handler. Currently, she’s got her time down to thirty seconds against him. Given the over-complicated structure of the dummy seal, as well as her unfamiliarity with it, that’s a pretty good time. But it means she has to be able to survive for thirty seconds alone and unaided.

_ Still, thirty seconds is a hell of a lot better than the full minute she started at. She’s gotten much better at fighting in general over this week, and that’ll do wonders for her combat ability. _

“Good morning, Mari.” I say cheerfully. 

“Hey, you two. Katsuo said that we were supposed to meet here, weren’t we?” 

It’s a bright and early Sunday morning. Last evening, we had been told to meet up in the usual place at eight-o-clock for a special surprise.

I nod.

“Can’t help but wonder what he’s got planned…” Mari muses.

“You’re about to find out.” Our handler announces, showing up all of a sudden. Mari and I start, surprised — Setsuna, on the other hand, looks mostly disinterested. 

_ She must have sensed him coming. Her ability to sense is already quite good, although I’m sure that, had our handler truly been trying, that there would have been no way for Setsuna to detect him. _

“While I would normally spend more time training you all up before we did anything like this, this is a special case. You are all rather above the ordinary. So this shouldn’t be anything too strenuous for you.” 

My heart leaps into my throat. He isn’t talking about—

“That’s right. It’s time for your very first mission.” 

“Really?!” Mari exclaims, excited. “What’s it going to be?”

“It’s a bodyguard mission. We’ll be escorting one of our merchants down to the nearby lake town, Tokoshi. We’ll be moving at typical civilian speed—“

_ Ah, slow as fuck speed, then? _

“So expect at least two days of journey.”

“Great…” Mari mutters rebelliously. I can’t blame her, although her emotion is misplaced.

“Will it just be us and the merchant?” I ask curiously.

“No. We’ll have a second elite ninja accompanying us as well, and the merchant will be providing their own bodyguards as well.”

I frown. That’s…extremely unusual, to say the least. Not the bodyguards thing — but ninja backup?

“Who, exactly…?” I ask. 

“Need-to-know. However, they are within the top 100 richest civilians in our entire village. If they die, leadership will be  _ quite  _ displeased.” 

Tch. That’s fairly important, actually. My mind immediately begins whirring through the ramifications—

“One-way or two-way?”

“Round-trip.”

“Important enough for elite backup, but not important enough for a full team?”

“Like it or not, you three are an extremely competent team as is. They’re confident you can handle it, with backup just in case.”

“In other words, they’re expecting an attack?”

“You’d be a fool not to.” 

“Send away the civilian bodyguards, then.”  _ Statistically, they’re the most likely vectors for an assassination, and the hardest to stop. _

“Client declined.”

“Fuck.” I swear. Damn civilians — It’s like they  _ want  _ to die. My mind seizes onto a different idea.

“You don’t suppose that we can’t just—“

“If you displease the client, that could have financial repercussions for our village. Do not.” 

So that’s a no to taking out the bodyguards ourselves.

“A fake attack—“

“You don’t really want to make them feel unsafe on a mission we’re providing, do you?”

Setsuna and Mari blink, barely able to keep up with the conversation. 

Damn it. This isn’t the kind of situation I had wanted for my first mission. A high-stakes, high-risk escort mission, with multiple potential vectors of attack because of  _ stupid fucking civilians.  _ If we just knocked this person out and threw him into a bag, we could have them there in a matter of hours. But we’ll have to wait two days instead, and that’s just to get them there. Then two days back, as well as however long they’re staying—

“How long will we be waiting for them, exactly? While they do whatever it is they’ll be doing there?”

“Overnight.”

_ A four day trip for less than twelve hours of work!  _

“Understood.” I say, resigning myself to the job ahead of me. It’s overly complicated, but…

“What, exactly, are we going to be doing against the inside threat?” 

“Our backup is a poison specialist, so there won’t be any problems handling that. Incidentally, he’s also a healer. He’ll be sitting with our client the whole time.”

Mari frowns, spotting the same thing I do. “But…didn’t she refuse to send away her civilian guards? She doesn’t trust us ninja, just like the majority of them, right? So how exactly will he be doing that?”

Our handler’s eyes glitter. “Seduction.”

I wince. 

“Wait…so is our client gay?” Mari asks, confused.

“He never said our client was male.” Setsuna interjects, for the first time. 

“That’s right. Our client is a female.”

I close my eyes. That’s… _ quite _ rare, to say the least. Rich civilians tend to be in trade or business — crafts that favor men over women. Our client likely has a backbone and ambition, then. Good for her, but poor for us — they’re exactly the type that refuse to be intimidated into letting ninja keep them safe.

“So they’ll have an elite guard on them at all times, then? That’s probably as much as we can hope for…” I mutter, musing over the assignment.

“That’s the plan.” Our handler states sardonically. 

“Noted.”  _ It’s a reminder — just because it’s a plan doesn’t mean that it’ll happen. Be prepared to adapt and improvise.  _

“How many others will there be?” Setsuna asks.

“Sixteen guards.” 

“Background checks?” I ask.

“They’re all loyal, but you know how easy that is to change.” 

“Any relationship issues with the other village, or grudges against her in particular?”  _ Any motives? _

“Not particularly, but she’s rich. And she’s traveling in a way that’ll make it obvious.”

“Of fucking course.” I sigh. “So we’ll have to prevent opportunistic attacks as well as planned attacks.”

“Correct. That about sums it up.” He tosses a sealed scroll at me, which I snatch out of the air. “The rest of the details are in there. T-Zero is at ten in the morning tomorrow at the South Gate. Do  _ not _ be late.”

“Understood, sir.” 

He departs, leaving us alone with the weight of responsibility and a full day on our hands.

“We’d better go over this first.” I mutter, glancing pointedly at the instructions in my hand.

They don’t have any objections, and soon enough, I’ve got the whole thing laid out on my kitchen table. 

_ 2-7S:6S. Difficulty, then importance. A second to seventh-star difficulty, and sixth-star importance. The range is because of the uncertainty of attack, and by whom. _

This is way beyond what a normal graduate team should be expected to handle. This is something a talented team of fifth-stars should be tackling, and that’s the  _ minimum _ necessary level, if not higher. 

Then again, our handler referenced us as an ‘extremely competent team’. Are we being scrutinized by the higher-ups?

_ Wait, no, this is…Mari warned us about this.  _

_ ‘Look, because of my aberration and my skill level, I’m going to be thrown into more dangerous situations.’  _

_ Right. So this is going to be the normal, then? We’ll just have to succeed.  _

We certainly can’t fail it. The stakes are rather high on this one — failure here could mean significant and potentially permanent financial consequences for the village. 

Two elites have been assigned to the mission. I know our handler is quite close to ninth-star level, and this mystery elite should be at least a seventh-star. 

No, here’s the answer:

_ Assigned: 1S, 2S, 4S, 2-8S | 3H  _

Seeing that line gives me more than a fair amount of relief. I feel  _ much  _ less underprepared now with that kind of power on our team. Mari easily classifies as a fifth-star, and with two solidly eighth-star ninja in our group…

And three healers…? The two elites we’ve got are also healers, then — although I knew as much already, given our handler’s ability as well as his earlier mention regarding the other elite’s capabilities. 

I keep on reading through the list. It is mostly things we already knew, in part due to my questioning. Our client in question will be traveling in a wagon, with two workers of hers driving it. We’ll have to keep an eye on him. Ten others will be watching our perimeter — and four others in the inner circle. 

Supposedly, our other elite will be there with her — but there’s definitely a problem here. If he’s going to be  _ with _ her, where will he go? Based on the sketch that has been provided, it doesn’t look like the wagon will be very big. Will the client really accept him being that close? Well, I suppose if he seduces her properly…

_ Two days of seduction…? That’s quite the period of time to keep it up for. Hopefully, she is not too unpleasant of an individual. I’d hate to be in his place.  _

_ But, still, that is the burden of ninja… _

There’s a brief write-up of her personality.

_ Akane Akiyama. Rather stubborn and bossy. Fairly intelligent for a civilian. Expects things to be done when she says them. Avoid confrontation as much as possible, as she gets quite aggressive. _

Ah, in other words, she threatens to take her business elsewhere, most likely? That  _ is _ quite annoying. And, worse, this profile contained about everything I expected. I was right…this person  _ is  _ problematic. 

_ Here’s to hoping she doesn’t cause any undue problems. _

“Are you okay, captain?” Mari asks. “You look…unsettled.” 

I blink, realizing that I’ve been letting my emotions show on my face. 

_ Well, there’s no harm in being honest. _

“This is going to be a problem. Have you read her psych report yet?” 

“Mm. It’s going to be trouble.” The Storm User mutters. We send each other equally commiserating looks. 

“…Huh?” Setsuna asks, perplexed. 

“Ah, you’re unfamiliar with the general behavior of civilian clients?” I ask her.

“Must be — wait, how do  _ you _ know?” Mari asks, confused. 

“I’m well-read on it.” I reply honestly. “Dozens of books, of mission logs and history. And I’ve interacted with more than my fair share of civilians. It’s enough to extrapolate from, to be frank.”

_ My main source of information is Hikaru, though — specifically, her time as a ninja. She’s been harassed by more than a few of them. But there’s little we can do about it — they have the power. Even if we could kill them, their money would leave the village…and it would damage our reputation with clients, so we have to put up with it. _

“I see.” The brunette says. “I’ve…had to deal with a few of my own, while I…was an apprentice.”

“You were—“ I start, surprised.

_ No, wait! This makes perfect sense. From back then…her issues with apprenticeship…I had only been speculating, but — and her strange knowledge about apprenticeship back when we were investigating our handler! It all lines up! The pieces were there, and I hadn’t connected them! _

She nods. “Needless to say, that isn’t the case now. But I’ll say simply that civilian clients tend to be insufferable, and you’ve got no choice but to put up with their shit.”

“…I see.” The sealer murmurs, looking a little disquieted. 

_ Huh? What’s her problem? _

Suddenly, a heavy sort of mood has fallen over our table. And I’m not too sure what everyone’s thinking, either…even Setsuna, who I can normally read like a book, has an unreadable look on her face.

_ …And, to be honest, I’m not sure how to break it. _

I continue reading the rest of the report. There isn’t much else we haven’t already figured out, though. 

I close my eyes, thinking.

Our objective is an escort mission. Protecting the VIP. As a result, any of our lives can be forfeit to complete the mission, although that would obviously not be optimal. However, if it’s  _ required _ …

We’ll have to defend from two different types of attacks. Firstly, there’s opportunistic attacks, and those will mostly come from bandits. These kinds of assaults should be easy to defend against, since they’ll be nearly always propagated by non-Users. Even the civilian guards ought to be able to hold such an attack off, if they’re competent in the slightest.

No, the real struggle will be defending against planned attacks. Those will be more well-coordinated, and it’ll be harder to defend. The attackers will have a greater purpose, and they’re more likely to be of higher quality — other ninja, even. Additionally, we’ll have to watch for internal attacks as well — traitors, in particular.

And we’ll have to guard against accidents, too. There’s a reason that escort missions are considered one of the more challenging classes of assignments. In the event of a fight, Setsuna should be with the client — her barriers might save their life. 

I can position myself on top of the wagon and utilize my archery skills. It puts me in a good position to observe the entire field, as well as take shots from a distance while keeping me in close vicinity with our client. Our elite could stay as well, leaving Mari and our handler to fight the enemy. 

…There’s still so many holes for enemies to exploit. A single massive attack, taking us by surprise, would kill our client before any of us could feasibly react. A road, prepared ahead of time with explosives, remotely detonated…a long-range sniper, aiming into the wagon…

But still, I think we’re about as prepared as we can be. Poison is out. Most conventional attacks shouldn’t make it past our guard…and we have a lot of sensory capabilities. This is the best we can do with it, I guess. We’ll just have to adapt and overcome. 

I express my plan to my teammates — they don’t seem to have any particular objection. With a strategy in place, they seem a bit more like their usual selves — Mari, in particular, seems to have broken out of the contemplative mood she had been in earlier, and departs to get prepared for her mission, leaving me with a still-moody Setsuna.

“Are you okay?” I ask bluntly, not sure how to approach it any other way.

“…I was a civilian, once.” The black-haired girl says, not meeting my eyes.

Instantly, I realize my misstep.

“You’re different now.” I reply.

“I know.” 

Despite those truthful words, she doesn’t look much happier about it. And I’m not sure how to reassure her, since I don’t even know what her problem truly is with it.

After all, if it had really been about her past as a non-User, wouldn’t the realization that she  _ is  _ a User now soothe her?

I don’t understand.

The uncomfortable silence persists as we prepare ourselves for the mission, do some light individual training, and, eventually, prepare for bed.

_ This is ridiculous. She’s lying in my arms right now, and I still can’t… _

I shake my head mentally. I could very well die, this next mission. It wouldn’t do to leave any regrets like this. 

“I’m sorry, Setsuna.” I whisper against her hair.

She shifts against me until she’s able to look me in the eyes.

“I…I wasn’t a burden to you, right, Yuki…?” She whispers. “Back…in the Academy…”

“You were not.” I whisper fiercely. She flushes a little.

“…Thank you…” 

“What?“ 

Whatever it is she’s thanking me for, I won’t find out — she’s fallen fast asleep..or more likely, is pretending to be. 

I sigh ruefully, gently patting her head. I’m not sure where that little bout of self-doubt came from — was it really from my words alone?

I fall into a fitful sleep, troubled by my thoughts.

  
  



	26. (2.3.2) Black and White, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rough with some very icky implications and will be the second *darkest* chapter in not only this Act, but for the next two, as well. If you reach a point where you find yourself uncomfortable, please scroll down to the end. I will provide a summary of the points after things get uncomfortable.

#  **2.3.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Black and White,** **Part 2**

Everyone’s awake bright and early for the mission. Setsuna’s temporary fit of sadness seems to have disappeared entirely as she flits — _flits_ — from one room to the other, ensuring we haven’t forgotten anything as I cook us a decent meal. 

We meet up with Mari, and head out. The South Gate is…well, needless to say, it’s out of the way. Exiting the ninja district goes by quickly — it’s the civilian district that stalls us, as, to prevent chaos, we’re limited to more normal speeds, walking quickly through the roads. 

The architecture here is a bit more extravagant, if still composed of the same basic materials — stone, mostly, with some wood and paper designs, as well. It isn’t much different from our own buildings in pure structure.

It’s also rather more crowded, to say the least. There aren’t as many people going by on rooftops, either — just ninja on patrol, or those headed in and out. People give us interested and occasionally distrustful stares, but we aren’t harassed by anyone, either. After all, ninja do command a certain level of respect.

It’s a good thing we’d left earlier, since we arrive at the planned location only five minutes ahead of schedule. Our handler is there, talking to someone who stands like a ninja — wait, isn’t that…?

“The man from our investigation night…?” Mari murmurs. The black-haired man who knew our handler? And, more than that, was seemingly associated with him as a former apprentice…? 

And there’s our client, Miss Akiyama. She has piercing blue eyes, somewhat tanned skin, and dark black hair done up in an elaborate bun, with a black business suit to complete the ensemble. 

In other words, she looks exactly like the pain in the ass she was described to be. She’s standing close to the entrance of her cart — it seems that it’ll be a completely enclosed wagon, and we won’t be able to see inside or out once a cloth shutter on the side is pulled.

I frown. It seems like an unnecessary design, but…who knows, with civilians. At least it won’t be soundproof — otherwise, air would be an issue. 

Not written on the mission scroll was the fact that there are two additional carts. They’re not enclosed, though — rather, they’re filled with boxes and crates. A merchant expedition, then?

I give her an acknowledging nod — which she ignores, only reaffirming my dislike of her. But I don’t let that show on my face, instead leading my team towards our handler.

“Reporting for duty, sir.” I say, saluting. He glances at us out of the corner of his eye.

“Excellent. We’re about ready to go — we just have to…inform our client of our seating arrangement.” He says, and although his expression and tone is completely blank, his distaste is quite clear.

“I wish you the best of luck.” I address the other elite. He gives me a thin smile. 

To help him stand out a little less, he’s dressed…abnormally for the situation. Rather than carrying obvious ninja tools, he has what looks like a set of seals on the back of his hands, and perhaps more where I can’t see them. He’s also dressed in casual civilian clothing, a T-shirt and denim long pants. If I were so inclined, I’d call him ‘dashing’. Sort of, anyways.

It should be more than enough—

…

“No.” Her voice rings, clipped in irritation.

“Ma’am, I am just here to ensure your safety. Please understand. This is what you’ve hired us to do.” He protests.

_So that didn’t go well. His approach was quite good — charming, without being over-the-top. But she dismissed him instantly, without the slightest bit of hesitation. Bizarre. He’s a good looking man…is he so far from her taste that she wouldn’t even think twice about it?_

“I refuse. Putting up with a man like you for two days? No, I think it’ll be much better if you remained outside of the wagon.”

I’m reminded of how much ability elites have when the cutting words don’t even make a dent on his calm expression. “I see that you will not be persuaded otherwise. However, for your safety, I absolutely insist that you take a ninja with you.”

The woman clucks her tongue. “You people are quite inconvenient, aren’t you? I can’t believe I have to pay for this.”

I can _feel_ the tension from Mari spike. I send her a warning glance to calm her down, even though I myself have had to use the Veil to avoid snapping and stabbing her with a knife.

“So I just have to select any of you ninja, then?” She asks.

“If you could please.” He requests.

She doesn’t even bother looking at our handler or the other elite. Her eyes scan past me and Mari before eventually landing on the most petite member of our team.

The woman smirks. “Her. She’ll be my guard.” 

_Setsuna!?_

The sealer’s eyes widen. 

“U-Understood.” She replies, bowing. 

Tension fills my body, my blood pulsing through my veins. There’s…there’s something wrong here. The weakest-looking ninja here? 

_Why?_

“Well? Help me in, then.” She says, gesturing to her wagon. Setsuna hastily moves over and offers her hand, which the other woman grasps as she steps up onto it, then into the awaiting enclosed area. 

Glancing over at me, she tries to convey reassurance. _‘It’ll be okay.’_

Then she steps inside, the shutter closing behind her. Our handler sends me a quelling look as I grit my teeth.

_Something’s…definitely off about this situation._

I will…I will trust in Setsuna to be safe. That’s all I can do in this situation. I’m…powerless to do anything else.

_Damn it. Damn it!_

“Yuki.” Mari murmurs, a hand on my shoulder.

“I know.” I hiss. “But you can feel it too, can’t you…? That something’s very wrong about this situation?” 

“Of course I can. But we don’t have a choice.” She whispers urgently. “Don’t let your emotions get the best of you.”

I take a deep breath and pull the Veil tighter. 

“I’ll be okay.” I mutter. “And for our client’s sake, Setsuna had better be, too.”

“Seems like everything’s ready, then. Let’s go.” Our handler instructs, as the gate rises up and the first cart heads out. 

Once on the road, the format begins to make more sense. There’s three drivers and four guards in front and in back of us. Then, at the edges of the road, lie four guards on either side. It _is_ quite the wide road, but it will eventually narrow out. Formation will have to change out of necessity.

It looks like they’re armed with simple spears, too, with light armor. It makes sense, given the journey, but their usefulness as ‘guards’ will be rather limited. They definitely couldn’t handle a basic ninja attack — I’m confident that Setsuna and I alone could run them down. 

Hence the heavy ninja presence. Frankly, they serve no purpose at all but to consume supplies. And if they would just let us seal their cargo, we’d only need one cart, too.

_Civilians._

At least one major problem has been solved. There aren’t any unknowns in the wagon with her, and we won’t have to worry about Setsuna murdering our client. 

Better yet, the guards are a good distance away, making an internal threat unlikely to succeed — at least, for now. 

Now comes the most challenging part of the mission…remaining vigilant while absolutely nothing is happening.

…That being said, Mari and I both aren’t sensors. Our ability to sense threats is, to be frank, not that high. As a result, we just primarily need to be ready to defend, not detect. 

Our handler and backup plant themselves on either side of the cart, a bit forward up, leaving Mari and I as the rear guard. 

I sigh. This entire situation is good example as to why you don’t rely on plans. It’s better to be a stronger improviser than it is to be a stronger planner. Things will never go as you expect. The three carts alone weren’t ever mentioned, and Setsuna being taken as her personal guard was equally unexpected. 

This is still a very serviceable situation, though, at least. Thinking about logistics helps. Anything helps. I flip a knife out into my right hand and spin it around, using the motions to help the distraction—

“Are you okay?” Mari whispers to me about twenty minutes into the walk to Tokoshi, quietly enough for the two of us alone to hear. 

“Yes.” I say shortly.

“Worried?” 

I shoot her a glare.

“Sorry, silly question.” She mutters. “But the best thing you can do is to take your mind off of it.” 

“ _Take my mind off of it?!_ ” I hiss under my breath. “How the _hell am I supposed to take my mind off of it when Setsuna is potentially in danger right now?”_

She winces. “You’re misunderstanding the type of danger she’s in. Physical harm isn’t what she has to be worried about.” 

“…Explain.” I say flatly. 

“…Rape.”

Without any input on my part, the knife in my hand shatters into a dozen pieces, my aura barely kept in control—

Blood flows freely from multiple lacerations in my palm — with barely a moment’s thought, I use qi to force the shrapnel from my hand and begin healing the wounds.

“I see.” I say, purposefully calmly, pulling my Veil in tighter than I ever have before to drown out the hot rush of anger her statement forced. 

Of course, my action hasn’t gone unnoticed by our handler, who steps backwards and turns to send a chilling glare directly into my eyes. Then his gaze turns to the shattered blade, as he raises a hand toward it.

Suddenly, all the metal pieces go flying towards him, landing on his outstretched palm, and put themselves together. With a silvery glow, they fuse together and he flips the reforged blade to me, handle out.

“…Thank you.” I reply. It’s the only thing I can think of to say to that display. 

“Control yourself or return to the village.”

It’s a warning, but also an invitation, I think. That if I can’t handle the knowledge of what is most likely going on in that cart, that I should leave. Not just the mission, but…I should quit being a ninja entirely. 

_That’s right…this kind of thing is normal. And I can’t do anything about it._

_The fact of the matter is…she has power. I can’t murder her because of her money. The repercussion would be instant, and the village would almost certainly have me executed._

“Understood…sir.” I reply tonelessly. He nods and heads back to his position. It takes another three hours before I’m capable of lowering my Veil even the slightest degree without going on a murderous rampage. 

It takes another five hours of holding in my anger before something happens. We’re on a tighter route than we’d started on, so the guards have split up to go four in the front and back of the convoy, and four more between each supply wagon and the main wagon. On the sides of us are fairly thick woods, a perfect place to launch an ambush from. 

I’ve been sitting on second-level reinforcement since ten minutes in, training my ability to close the gap between level two and three, when the attack happens.

It’s a group of eight, which would be insane odds if our attackers weren’t Users. A dozen daggers with explosive tags are launched high into the air — a good start against most groups, but our handler notices immediately and shouts—

“Mari — above!” 

I don’t see what she does — I’m already running at a blisteringly fast pace towards the first identifiable target, who has just slain the four frontal guards and is turning towards the wagons. With the raw momentum I’ve generated, my sword cleaves right through him before he can muster a sufficient defense — but I don’t stop to confirm the kill, I race towards the next, collecting my qi—

He’s ready for me, white-hot flames coiling around his arms, so instead I hurl my sword towards him. Simultaneously, I release the gathered qi in my body as an explosive burst, trading my reinforcement for a wave of force that shatters the earth around me and sends the man reeling. He still manages to block the sword, but a wind crescent of qi severs his legs. 

_A three-pronged attack that blocked his vision and put him into the air, letting me finish him off._

Now, the rest of his team is ready, aware that they’re under attack — there’s two more standing on this side, and they’re prepared — it’s a good time for me to disengage, and I do so, calling my Wind to me and blasting it in front of me to propel myself away—

And speeding up _Mari_ , who I’d detected coming up behind me. In a whirling kick that’s so fast I can barely follow it, she finishes off the still-collapsing man in an instant, blood misting into the air and steaming off of the qi coating her body. Simultaneously, I unseal my bow, preparing to give her ranged support. My arrows have already been prepared on a small seal etched into my belt. I pull three, holding them in my drawing hand as I notch the first.

Left, right — our two enemies are split up and about twenty meters away, so I should distract one—

I’ve barely made the call to do so when I fire, calling Wind into the arrow as I do so. The second that one is launched, I launch the second, then the third in the same manner, before springing to the side.

After a week’s worth of dedicated practice, I’ve managed to get my shot speed to about three shots every four seconds. And every shot I’ve fired is empowered with Wind energy, giving it a bit more piercing power than it would normally. 

The first shot is deflected by the right-most ninja I’ve been aiming at, although the force cracks the knife and renders it unusable. He dodges the second one by a hair, but the third passes by his hand and tears the top third of his pinky off.

A consummate professional, he clamps down on the scream that is surely rising in his throat, and makes a gesture towards me—

Alarmed, I vault away as a large spike of earth tears out of the ground and nearly rips my throat out. Mid-jump, I pulse a bit of qi into a seal on my bow, unloading a special arrow that I load and fire in a smooth motion.

Sadly, he takes the half-second to use an earthen wall to block the shot, so the explosion that occurs is nullified. 

_Damn. It was cocky of me, especially against an opponent of unknown power, but I had hoped to take him down there._

Since he’s an Earth user, I’m unlikely to get more mileage out of the bow, so I seal it, simultaneously using a burst of Wind energy to dodge a boulder that would have caved my chest in had it hit me.

I’m able to land safely, but a dozen more rocks fly at me in moments, forcing me to keep moving. Although he leads his shots well, I’m able to use hasty blasts of wind to knock them out of their intended path, and move _me_ , as well.

_That rate of fire is too high for someone at my level. I’d roughly estimate this person at Mari’s level, at least. I just caught him off guard._

I can feel it, too — he’s sunk a solid amount of qi into the ground around him, letting him manipulate the area at will. _Territory creation_ , the main combat style of skilled Earth users. It’s extremely challenging to fight someone in that kind of zone, because they can manipulate the nearby environment at will. 

_Above Mari’s level, then. Shit. I can’t fight him_ at all _, then. He’ll easily deflect my Wind attacks, and I’m not confident in my Water abilities — not against someone this strong._

From the Storm User’s side of the battlefield, something is sent at high speeds towards my opponent. He blocks with an Earth wall, and instantly—

Blood _bursts_ into the air.

_Ah, it was that man’s teammate. I guess she had an easier fight than me._

“Careful, Mari!” I shout out, warning her of her level. She inclines her head briefly before racing in.

Although he may be at a higher level, Earth is naturally countered by Lightning, and even harder by Storm. It has to do with the way qi flows through their materials — Earth, as you might imagine, is solid, and the qi reflects that. Ice works somewhat similarly, crystallizing into perfect structures. 

Lightning, and by extension Storm, crashes into these walls and pierces them with little effort, unless there’s a substantial power difference. Had Mari been a Lightning user, perhaps there would have been enough. But with Storm…?

The force of Mari’s qi surges into his territory, damaging it severely — enough for the girl in question to dart in and unleash a devastating forward kick — that he _blocks_ , but just barely, a loud _crack_ echoing through the area as his arm snaps. The fact that it wasn’t ripped off entirely is a testament to his defensive prowess, but it doesn’t matter. 

Following through with the momentum of her action, Mari makes a short flip to put her back on her feet, simultaneously charging electricity into her hand. The second her foot touches the ground, lightning lances off her fingertips at a rate vastly exceeding my arrow fire—

He’s able to block three of the bolts, one after the other, but the fourth clips him and allows the fifth one to sink right into his chest and _out_ , blowing his lung out in a shower of gore. 

A second to charge a stronger bolt, and his body is ripped into two halves. 

“Good work, you two.” Our handler says. “I was monitoring the fight and was ready to step in, but you dealt with it fine on your own.”

I glance at him. “I presume your fight was easier?” 

He shrugs. “They had metal on them.”

That’s right — my handler _also_ uses a form of territory creation. However, his is far more…concentrated, so to speak, and infinitely more deadly. Within about a fifteen meter sphere of him, he can easily take control of any metal and manipulate it. 

This kind of thing would normally be near-impossible for someone to do, but with his aberration…from there, it’s easy to stab someone with their own weapons. It isn’t impossible to counter — simply infusing the metal on you with qi or flaring your aura would be sufficient to stop it, but against someone unprepared…? 

I point at the halved corpse. “What level was this guy at? He was able to establish a territory.” 

“Eeeh…sixth-star?” He says. “He died too fast before I could read him properly, but his output was at that level.”

_Gods above. Mari, with only marginal help from me, wiped out a sixth-star combatant as a fourth-star. It wasn’t even close. Statistics don’t matter as much as the exact conditions in combat…and in this case, they overwhelmingly favored Mari._

_Talent, skill, speed, power. It’s evident that Mari has been honing her craft for years. Even if she’s a fourth-star officially, her pure combat abilities are well beyond that, I think._

_Her fifth-star exam, then, should be quite interesting._

“Casualties?” I ask. 

“The four in the front. That’s all.” 

_Whew. Setsuna’s safe, then—_

I can feel myself tense up, thinking of her and the situation she’s in. Without another word, I depart to the wagons as fast as I can, noting a certain black-haired girl standing behind the passenger vehicle.

“Yuki.” She murmurs as I come to a stop in front of her.

“She hasn’t hurt you, has she?” I whisper softly.

Thankfully — _thankfully_ — she shakes her head. “Not…not yet. She’s…only spoken to me so far.” 

“I’m so sorry.” I whisper in reply. She shakes her head.

“It…could be worse.” She says, putting on a smile for my sake. But even so, it’s rather strained—

“I have to go back now, Yuki.” 

“…I know.” 

“Lower your Veil.” She says the line so softly that I barely catch it, enough to prevent eavesdropping—

_I don’t know if I can without—_

I swallow the reply and do what I’m told, instead. A murderous intent instantly wells up within me, but seeing Setsuna in front of me, _mostly_ unharmed, does a lot to quell it.

She nods in satisfaction, stepping forward and placing her hand on my shoulder.

“…Setsuna…?” I murmur. There’s a…there’s definitely a strange amount of intimacy in the air right now…

In lieu of a response, she stands on her tiptoes, leans forward and—

_…Huh…?_

I blink, stunned, as she pulls away, the phantom sensation of her lips on mine lingering. She flashes me a tiny smile.

“Just in case…” She murmurs. Shaking her head, the sealer lets go of me and heads past me, back into the wagon where our client waits.

…What just…what just happened…? 

I shake my head, my underlying anger swept away by confusion and…some other emotion I can’t easily identify. 

“You alright, captain?” Mari asks, unusually gentle. I glance at her — her eyes are a little wet…?

“I don’t understand.” I reply, touching my lips with a finger. “There are…so many things I don’t understand…” 

She smiles sadly. “You’ll figure it out. Not now, though. Focus on the mission first.” 

I nod, doing as she says and pulling my Veil back tighter.

Strangely enough, I don’t have to put as much effort into quelling the anger simmering beneath the surface…

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--
> 
> Yuki is extremely unhappy about the potential situation Setsuna has found herself in and barely maintains his control. Halfway through, they are attacked by bandits -- Mari and Yuki work together to fight them and defeat them with relative ease. Shortly after, Setsuna briefly kisses him. It is implied she does this in case her client does something to her. Yuki is unsure how to handle this.


	27. (2.3.3) Black and White, Part 3

#  **2.3.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Black and White,** **Part 3**

The rest of the day’s travel is uneventful, and we stop shortly after nightfall to make camp. 

Mercifully, Setsuna is given a break from the woman. But the look on her face, the second she’s out of sight of our client, says it all—

_ She has to go back again tomorrow. _

Immediately, she moves towards Mari and I, and, as a unit, we move about as far away from her as possible. Setsuna unseals the tent we’ll be using to sleep, as well as our other supplies, and we efficiently set it up and are within it in minutes.

Negligence? Yes. Fuck her, though. Our handlers can watch her. 

“Thanks.” She mutters weakly as I light a portable lamp, causing a gentle glow to fill the enclosed space.

“Please don’t worry about it.” Mari replies, pained. I nod in agreement. 

“This is the  _ least _ we could do for you.” I say quietly. 

She averts her gaze. “It…wasn’t that bad.” 

“Setsuna…” I whisper, lost for words.

“…It wasn’t…she didn’t really touch me, or yell at me, b-but…” She looks up, eyes wet. “But…”

“Hey, Setsuna, listen to me, okay?” Mari murmurs. “If you had the choice, would you repeat the experience? Did you  _ want  _ to go through that?” 

“…No, but…”

“That’s all that matters, Setsuna.” The Storm User says gently. “That’s all that matters. I’m going to hug you now, alright, Setsuna? Would you be okay with that?” She asks, still in that same quiet, calming tone.

“…Yes.”

And so, with her consent, Mari leans forward and gently, almost-too-cautiously scoops the petite girl into a hug, letting her bury her face into her chest. 

It takes a few seconds, but the sealer sniffles, then begins shaking, clear signs of her crying. 

_ Just what did that  _ bitch _ say to her?  _

Watching my closest friend  _ cry _ — something I’ve never,  _ ever  _ seen her do — and all because of this…

I’m forced to pull my Veil back over my heart. Otherwise, the murderous rage that fills me would lead me to…do things that I would likely not regret, to be completely honest.

But even though the rage is hidden away, the hate within me coalesces, having never truly left.

_ I hate  _ her _. I hate her so much. The second this mission is over, I’m going to make her life absolute hell. I don’t care if it’s treason. I’ll find a way to make her suffer.  _

_ What you’ve done to my best friend…is completely unacceptable. How many others have you hurt in that same way?  _

**_Completely unforgivable._ **

I’ve accepted it already — the fact that there’s nothing I can do right now. But in the future? I’m going to  _ destroy _ this woman that has hurt Setsuna. 

“Ah? She’s fallen asleep.” Mari says quietly, sounding surprised. “She looks tense, though…” 

I nod. “She must be exhausted. As for that…hand her over?” 

The brunette nods, shifting her weight so that the sleeping girl lands on my lap. I stop suppressing my aura, letting it envelop the girl next to me. The stress immediately falls away from her face, and her body relaxes. 

“…Wow.” Mari murmurs. 

“Mm.” I say, being sure to keep my voice lower. “Probably not the best of habits, but it’s hard to break two years worth of doing this. And I don’t exactly want to stop, either.” 

“So you guys really do sleep together, then…?” 

“Yes.” Talking about this kind of thing helps pull my mind off the anger I feel, so given the choice — I’ll take this.

“If you don’t mind me asking…how, exactly, did that start…?” 

I shrug. “She was an orphan, and joined the Academy midway through the sixth year. Since she became a student, she was assigned housing — and it happened to be the house I also lived in. She didn’t want to sleep alone, so I let her sleep with me…and we never really  _ stopped _ .” 

“Huh. That’s pretty cute.”

“I guess. Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be without her.” I make a face. “But I can’t even imagine. Having her around has completely changed everything.”

She smiles. “That isn’t a bad thing though, is it?” 

“It isn’t.”

There’s a brief lull in the conversation.

“You know, you’re a lot kinder than I thought you were at first.” I offer, causing her to flush. 

“That was — that  _ wasn’t _ who I am. And this is.” She sighs gustily. “I know compassion and kindness aren’t necessarily good traits for a ninja to have, but at the same time, I don’t want to give them up, either. If I can’t even care about my comrades, what’s the point?”

“…Protecting the village?” I suggest, confused.

She glances at me. “What’s the point in  _ my  _ life, specifically?” 

“…I don’t get it.” 

She huffs. “Why does my life matter in the long run?” 

I blink, unsure how to answer the question. “You’ll be able to protect the people you care about, won’t you?” 

“Mm. But what if I don’t care about anyone else?” 

“…Then…I’d guess you wouldn’t really have a reason…?” Hedonism is a possibility, but that’s a civilian’s choice, not a ninja’s.

“Mm. Sorry if that seemed kind of circular, but you’ll probably understand eventually. The village matters to me because the people I love are in it.” She smiles a beautiful smile. “So I’ll fight to protect them until the day I die. You could say that I live through the people I care about the most.” 

_ Live through the people I care about the most…? _

“I can see on your face that you don’t really get it.” She says, laughing softly. “That’s okay. Just think about it.”

“Alright.” I say. “On a different note, I was wondering about something else…”

“When she kissed you, right?” 

“Yeah…how’d you know?”

She grins. “Not a hard guess. So…you’re probably wondering  _ why _ , aren’t you?”

I make a face. “Am I that predictable?” 

“Anyways,” She says, conspicuously not answering the question, “Well…there’s a couple different explanations that come to mind, the most obvious being…well, have you considered that she has romantic feelings for you?” 

“…Uh, no?” I ask.

The brunette blinks, confused. “…Why?” 

I avert my gaze, choosing to stare at Setsuna’s peaceful face, instead. “…I don’t know.” 

“I’m not saying she does, but…that  _ is  _ one possible explanation, and…it also accounts for a lot of the way she behaves.” She murmurs. “And as for your end…can you really say that you feel nothing for her?” 

“I didn’t say that.” I reply sharply. 

“So what exactly  _ are _ your feelings for her, then?” Mari asks. 

“Ah, that’s easy.” I say. “She’s the most important person in my life.”

Mari’s eyes widen. “Okay, wow. Wasn’t expecting that. Well, do you want to spend the rest of your life with her?”

“If I can? Yes.” 

“Do you think she’s attractive?” 

I flush a little, thinking of that time when I’d…

“Yes.”

“So you think she’s cute, she’s the most important person in your life, and you want to be with her forever.” Mari lists off. “How much more do you need before you decide you  _ do  _ love her?”

I hesitate before responding. “…Is it really that simple?”

“From my perspective? Yes.” She replies firmly.

I frown. “…Okay, I’ll admit I love her, if you look at it like that. Now what?” 

She grins. “Ask her to date you.” 

“…But why?” 

“Because it’s fun, of course.” She says simply. “You would normally also get a sense of security and belonging from a relationship, but you two are close enough for that not to matter. You already have that.”

_ A sense of belonging… _

I can’t say I’d mind that. After all, it’s like what Mari says — I don’t feel any particular attachment to the village…only the people within it. Setsuna, Hikaru, Mari…fuck it, even Sayaka, I guess. They give me purpose, and a reason to fight. 

So another attachment, or, rather, a  _ deepening  _ of that attachment…probably isn’t a bad thing, is it?

But still…thinking about it fills me with a sort of tense anxiety…no, this would be fear, isn’t it? I’m scared that she’ll reject me. As simple and silly of a concern as it is…

Even though I know it’s a ridiculous thing to be worried about, it won’t go away. 

“Hypothetically, if I were to ask her, and she said yes…what, then? What would even change? We’re already very close.” 

“Who knows?” She shrugs. “That…you’d have to find out.”

“I see.” 

“I hope you guys work out.” The brunette says, smiling softly. “It really is unusual to share the kind of bond you two have, especially this early in your life.”

“Thanks, Mari.” I say genuinely. Feeling a sudden urge to reassure her, I add:

“You’ll find someone too, you know?”

She grins. “I know.” 

_ That level of confidence is quite admirable.  _

The conversation naturally lulls there, and we decide to turn in early.

…

I’m awoken from my slumber by a disturbance in the air. As it turns out, I’ve just detected my handler, making his way outside of the tent. He pops his head in—

“Ah, excellent, you’re awake. Your shift for guard. Wake the other two.” 

Consulting my internal clock, I estimate the time to be…about four in the morning. 

“Last shift?”

“Correct.”

He pulls out of the tent, leaving me to wake my teammates. Or, well, teammate — Setsuna is already awake, and has been since at least the time I’ve been up. 

“Mari.” I say firmly. 

She doesn’t stir. I’m tempted to poke her with a qi bolt, but that might accidentally incur a lethal response in reflex. Physically touching her in any way might do the same, so— 

Setsuna claps sharply, causing Mari to bolt up in surprise.

_ Well, that works. _

“Guard duty.” I offer, by way of explanation. She blinks to awareness quickly.

“All three of us?” 

I shrug. “It’s a big camp.” 

“I suppose so.” She says dolefully. “What am I even supposed to do? I’m not a sensor or anything.”

“Why, guard our beloved client, of course.” I say flatly. 

Her eyes light up. “Ooooooooh. Actually, I was thinking, she should probably wake up now, right? After all, if an attack happens…”

I consider it. “No, then she’ll just say that it was our job to protect her. But if something were to accidentally fall near her tent and create a racket, I don’t think you could be at fault for that. Of course, then our handlers might kill you…”

Setsuna sighs dejectedly. “Just leave her alone. There’s not much of a point.”

I glance at her. “Flip the situation. Would you be able to sit aside and do nothing?” 

She doesn’t respond for a while. Then:

“There’s nothing you can do without significant consequences.” She replies shortly. “It’ll only be another three days.”

_ And that’s completely unacceptable. Don’t you understand, Setsuna? If there’s anything I can do about this, I will! And…I’ve just had an idea.  _

“I’ll be back. Take your guard positions.” I spin around, heading to the middle of the camp.

“Yuki, don’t do anything rash!” Setsuna hisses. I pause.

“I won’t.” 

Then I keep walking, heading over to our handler’s tent — it’s positioned very closely to our client’s wagon, for obvious reasons.

“ _ Katsuo _ , are you awake?” I ask quietly. 

He sticks his head out of the cloth flap, looking…intrigued. “Oh? What’s running through your mind right now?” 

“Can we talk? Away from—“ I gesture around me, specifically at the wagon with that  _ person _ . 

“Hm…alright.” He gets out of the tent and walks with me for a bit, over into the forest proper. Once I’m sure we’re out of hearing distance...

“You are a good friend of Hikaru’s, right?” I say, shamelessly dropping her name. 

He blinks. “That…would not be incorrect, no.” 

_ I’d thought so. The relationship they’d hinted at earlier, Hikaru’s revelation of being teammates with him, and trusting him to set up her security system… _

“As her bound apprentice, I need a favor.”

The grey-haired man immediately stiffens. “So you’re the one...”

I nod, unsure of what exactly he’s referring to, but it isn’t too hard to guess.

“What’s this favor, then? If it’s about our client, you ought to already know the answer.” He says firmly. 

“I thought you would say that. But is it really what you want? I’m positive that you’re not okay with the situation, either. Having known Hikaru when she was young, and—“

“This isn’t about what I want.” He replies bluntly. “You should already know—“

“If I hadn’t, I would have killed her already.” I admit honestly. He doesn’t react to this borderline treasonous declaration. “I know we can’t just do something like that. But that other elite — he’s also someone you know, isn’t he? And a poison specialist, right? We could knock her out by drugging her and using a memory removal agent to make her think she had naturally fallen asleep.” 

He clicks his tongue. “Exploiting the civilian tendency of waking up slowly, and using a drug to mimic that…clever. Very clever. A waste of supplies, but…” 

“It’d make it easier to guard her, too. Less likely to do something stupid. We can wake her easily in the event of an attack, but…I don’t think we’d  _ want  _ to, so…” I argue, but he cuts me off with a gesture. 

“Alright, Yuki. I’ll accept this favor. You’ll be paying it back at some point, but in exchange I’ll be sure to keep her out of it for as much of this mission as is reasonable.” He replies dryly.

“Thank you so much.” I say, bowing deeply.

“I’ll have to add one thing, though.” He says, stopping me from leaving. “You won’t need the memory agent, just a sleeping poison, which I believe you have.” 

“Huh? Why not?” I ask. 

“Because I’ve been fucking with her the entire night. She hasn’t gotten a wink of sleep.” He says, the beginnings of a tiny smirk on his face.

I blink, surprised.

_ So he does care, then…? Enough to  _ do  _ something about it too? That’s right, Hikaru, once upon a time, had to handle the same kind of situation Setsuna did. And if I remember correctly… _

_ He couldn’t do anything then, for the same reasons I couldn’t. But, now that he  _ can _ , even by proxy, he’s going for it.  _

“So she’ll fall asleep naturally.” I surmise.

“Or she’ll be too tired to realize that she’s been drugged. Either way, we can use them to extend the time of her rest, and Mizunaka will be able to do his original job and sit next to her.”

“The other elite?” I confirm.

“Correct.” 

I nod, satisfied. In the end…I didn’t even need to do much at all. I only wish I had thought of my idea sooner, but…

_ At least…this is some time I’ve saved her from it. _

We exit the forest, separating as I head to my position in the middle of the camp. On the way there, I feel a ripple of qi emit from my handler, and the earth beneath the wagon shifts slightly. A muffled  _ thump _ , followed by some swearing, makes it challenging for me to hold hysterical laughter back.

But there’s nothing in the world that could stop my smile at that wretched woman getting a little bit of the hell she deserves. 

…

My four hour shift passes uneventfully, and soon it’s time to keep going. 

As it turns out, my handler’s work has been quite fruitful. I don’t even need to knock her out — she stumbles her way through breakfast before passing out in the wagon. Once she does, I sneak in and give her the injection she needs to ensure she remains like that for at least the next eight hours.

_ Bitch. _

So, when Setsuna, oblivious to the situation, heads over to her fate—

“Where are you going?” I ask.

She blinks. “You know where.” 

“There’s no point. She’s sleeping. And will be for quite a while.” I reply matter-of-factly.

The black-haired girl’s eyes widen. “Y-Yuki, you—“ 

“The other ninja will take care of it. Stay with us, Setsuna.” I offer. 

She glances at the man in question, who is slipping into the wagon, then back at me, and Mari, who’s standing next to me, looking equally surprised.

“You actually did it, Yuki…?” The Storm User asks, stunned.

It’s probably best not to implicate our handler in this. “Yes.” 

“You…you won’t get in trouble for this, will you?” Setsuna asks anxiously.

“Nope.” 

Only then does she relax, a beautiful smile blossoming on her face. “T-Thank you, Yuki.”

My heart skips a beat.

“Of course.” I say, trying my best not to let my feelings show on my face.

Mari grins, thoroughly amused by the proceedings.

…

The second half of the journey proceeds much more smoothly, and just before sunset, we reach the town in question. As we do, the other ninja hits our client with the counter-agent, waking her up. She doesn’t seem to have noticed anything amiss, and doesn’t have time to ‘entertain’ Setsuna either, since she’s here for her business. 

“We’ll be staying here for the night.” Our handler says. “She’s going to be busy until a bit before midnight, and she’ll be sleeping in one of the motel rooms.”

“The penthouse?” I ask sardonically. 

“No, actually. Ground floor.”

_ Oh? An intelligent safety decision? How strange. _

We spend the time guarding the ‘meeting room’, but nothing happens. The cargo is unloaded from the wagons, and a different set of boxes loaded on. Seems like the trade of whatever it was went well.

But after, she invites Setsuna to her room, to ‘guard’ her. And this time, we can’t find a reason for her not to. 

Before I can enact our old plan into motion, the sealer heads in. But as she crosses the threshold, though, she gives me a look.

_ ‘I’ll be okay.’ _

“I hate this.” Mari mutters a few minutes later, as we guard the door. “I hate how little I can do about this. Is the only solution to become richer than all of these people, so much that  _ I’ll _ be the one who has the power?”

I shrug. “I’m in favor of the option to just kill them all, to be honest.”

“That’s…really not a viable option, Yuki.” She says flatly.

“Well, then—“ 

What I’m about to say is cut off by a qi spike within the room we’re guarding and a flaring of my instincts — eyes wide, I tackle Mari to the ground and reinforce myself as the door behind us explodes, a body flying through and out of it—

_ Our client?!?! _

And Setsuna, of all the people, jumping into the doorway with strength-boosting seals active. 

“Wha—what the fuck happened?!” Mari yells from under me, alarmed.

“She tried to drug me!” Setsuna shouts in reply.

My blood runs cold. Instantly, my hands fly to the sword hilt at my waist. 

“That’s treason…a crime punishable by  _ execution _ .” I murmur.

_ Although that sentence is almost never carried out on the field. Also, in cases such as these, where the criminal is not an immediate threat to village welfare, they are put in court, rather than a battlefield sentencing. And the richer you are…! _

“What the fuck is going on here?” Our handler says, skidding around the corner with sword in hand. It’s at this moment, however, that our client regains her senses from being used as a battering ram _. _

“That crazy bitch of a ninja  _ attacked me _ for no reason!” She screeches, pointing at Setsuna. Our handler’s mouth flattens.

“The crazy bitch you’re referring to is my student. I’ll indulge you for a moment and agree that you  _ were _ attacked, so the obvious follow-up is:  _ why? _ ” 

“ _ Ninja these days are completely out of control! When we get back to the village, I’ll—“ _

Killing intent floods the hallway, focused on a single person. Even from a dozen meters away and not as the primary focus, I’m still forced to pull my Veil up to prevent myself from being too disturbed.

“I can see you’ll be useless. Shut up, would you?” He orders darkly.

The civilian doesn’t seem to know how to respond. Or, more likely, she  _ can’t. _

“Setsuna. _What_ _happened_?” 

Looking a little shaken herself, the sealer recounts the events. It is, frankly, alarming. 

Apparently, the woman wished for Setsuna to ‘quit her silly dreams of being a ninja’ in order to be her…pleasure slave. She was going to stage an attack by drugging Setsuna and having some of her guards sneak her out to a hidden location in the village, and having her be brought back later on, with a different identity to avoid detection. 

Setsuna, for her part, neither encouraged nor discouraged her plans. She just remained silent and did nothing. The entire plan was the woman’s, who for some reason thought that Setsuna would be okay with it, and that she would get away with it. 

Well…no. Fat fucking no. 

“Well. It’s evident to me that this is now a matter of village security.” Our handler announces. “We need to see if there are any moles that we’ve got to be looking out for. Was this a targeted attack? How far up does this go?”

He gives me a look devoid of any emotion.

“Yuki. Mari. Interrogate her.” 

I return his look with my own cold one.

“ _ Understood…sir.” _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will shortly be putting up another series that consists of small, canonical one-shots. 
> 
> Chapter 1: Mirror  
> \-- Sayaka encounters someone unexpected as she reflects on herself.  
> Timeline: 2.2.7  
> Spoilers: 2.2


	28. (3.3.4) Black and White, Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the darkest. Extreme content warning involving graphic violence and torture. 
> 
> I will be putting up a copy of this chapter immediately after this one with said content removed, but for those of you comfortable reading such material, it is a very, very good reminder of what Yuki is actually capable of.

#  **2.3.4 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Black and White,** **Part 4**

**Content Warning: Extremely graphic violence involving torture.**

_No permanent damage. Don’t kill her._ Those are the rules of the interrogation that our handler gives me. For most, that would only be a small step up from a soft-touch interrogation, one where you couldn’t hurt them much at all. They’d be able to beat her around a little bit, and that might break your average civilian. I could do that. 

But I’m not limited to that.

_No permanent damage. Don’t kill her._

For someone like me? A healer? Especially with what I’d just learned from the first intergroup training exercise I’d had?

Well. That means I can play quite a bit _rougher_. 

_“Interrogation?!”_ The client shrieks. _“Now just wait a—“_

Unceremoniously, I stomp over to her and kick her in the stomach roughly, forcing her to shut up as a rib cracks. A scream of a different kind entirely starts coming out of her throat, but I slap my hand over her mouth and clamp down hard enough to prevent any sound entirely.

“This is a matter of village security. **Shut up**.” 

And, well, if those words aren’t laced with a certain bit of satisfaction, well, who could blame me? 

She pales remarkably as she begins to realize the danger she’s in…or perhaps because of the broken bone. Who knows?

“Let’s go, Mari.” I say, spiking a bit of qi into the back of the woman’s neck in a specific way to make her lose consciousness and make her easier to carry. 

_“Don’t break the rules, Yuki.”_ Our handler orders. 

“I won’t.” I reply simply. After all, I have a trump card to play, if I must. So, short of killing her, I can do anything I want.

It’s at this moment a motel employee turns the corner running and comes face-to-face with the scene. Two ninja, holding an unconscious woman. Two others, one still radiating a decent amount of killing intent. A shattered door, debris scattered over the hallway. 

“Wha...What’s going on here?!” He asks, dropping the towels that he’s holding.

“Official Alune business. Just handling a runaway. We’ll be sure to repay you for the destroyed door, and everything else. Don’t get in our way.” Our handler says bluntly.

Tokoshi isn’t economically important to us. It’s effectively a resort village for civilians. On the other hand, they depend on us for survival. So, as a village, they are subservient to us, both in military power and economically.

So the employee immediately bowing and backing away to let us do what we shall is simply a fulfillment of expectation.

“Huh. Here’s a good opportunity. Setsuna, use nonlethal methods to disable any of the guards that get curious.” Katsuo instructs.

_Even in the middle of an aborted mission, he’s still finding the time to give us practical experiences…_

_I’ve never done a full interrogation like this, but…I don’t think it’ll be too hard, either. Businesswoman she may be, she’s a civilian. Easy to break._

The chill of the Veil slips over me, preparing me for what I plan to do, and I let it. 

We take her out into the forest surrounding the lake village. As she’s likely to scream, it’s good to keep her away from the village…and it’ll also help disposal and cleanup, shall we decide to go through with that.

_Here’s hoping._

We quickly and efficiently set up a tent I unseal from my belt before tossing her into it, binding her arms and legs to an earthen pillar I pull up with rope, and reinforcing said bindings and structure so she can’t easily get out of it. Then we strip her out of her clothing to avoid it getting bloodied.

Once that’s done, we wake her up via shocks courtesy of Mari.

“Gah! What the _fuck_ is wrong with you people!?”

I laugh, a rusty unused sound, leaning down to grip her by the chin and flashing teeth.

“Woman, you’ve got a lot to learn about this world.”

She spits at me, looking furious.

Still smiling, I hit her in the cheek with a reinforced punch that shatters her jaw and immediately knocks her unconscious.

“Wake her up.” I say carelessly, using Water to cleanse her saliva from me as I heal her wounds imperfectly with my Water aspect, enough to reduce the damage while still leaving behind the pain.

Mari does so, face blank. 

“Ugh…w-wh…” 

“Ah, you seem to be having trouble talking.” I say, intentionally pressing down on her injuries and forcing a gargled shriek out of her. “That’s strike one, incidentally. If you get to strike three, I will _skin you alive_. Feel free to test me, though.” 

“Gh…hahh…” Tears begin running down her face as she begins breaking down, apparently not anticipating the level of brutality I’ve inflicted on her.

_We’re just getting started._

“Ah, but Captain!” Mari asks brightly, fake surprise in her tone. “But I thought you weren’t able to do permanent harm to her?” 

_Oh, is that the game we’re playing?_

_“Well…”_ I drawl out, “It sure is a good thing that I’m a healer, right? So I can do as much damage as I want, then just—“

The sounds from our captive increase in intensity as I tighten my grip.

“Oh, do you want to speak?” I ask, tilting my head. She nods minutely. Any more and it’d probably hurt quite a bit, what with her destroyed lower face. 

_Actually, I’ll admit that I’m a bit impressed by her composure._

“Remember. Strike one.” I heal the rest of her face.

“I’ll…I’ll talk. I’ll cooperate, okay!? Gods…what the hell…” She immediately blurts out, weeping.

Mari’s eye glimmers. “You truly plan on cooperating with us, then? Telling us the truth?”

“Y-Yes…of course I am…! You crazy bastards will just torture me, so—“ 

The Storm User tilts her head. “And that’s lie number two. If you really wanted to cooperate with us…why are you lying?”

The civilian stiffens. “You can…you—“

“Oh, yeah. That’s why I’m here. I can tell when you’re lying.” Mari says, turning away. “Well, that’s…strike two, isn’t it?”

I shrug. “I was thinking it was strike three, actually. There were two lies, after all.”

“W-Wait, h-hold on a moment…!” 

“But it was one incident. Isn’t that one strike?” 

“Well, do you count the part where she started crying to try and manipulate our emotions?” I ask. “That could be two, right? Hey, if you count the others as two like you should, that’s the fourth strike.”

“What the hell is strike four supposed to be?”

“I dunno.” I say, glancing at the captive. “I didn’t think anyone would be dumb enough to make it that far, so…”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please…!” 

“You’re only sorry that you got caught.” I say darkly. “But you aren’t sorry that you tried to manipulate the situation. You’d think, after failing as bad as you did with Setsuna—“

_No point hiding the name. She knows all of our first names as a result of our handler. Why’d he drop that information to her…?_

“—That you’d quit trying to manipulate us. Did you forget? We’re ninja. We’re trained liars. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” 

She sobs. It feels more genuine than before.

“Well, lucky for you, I’ll do as Mari says. Strike two it is, then. Let’s see…” 

“N-No, please, I—“

I begin channeling my qi, manifesting Water into the space in front of me, compacting it, then shaping it…

It takes a decent amount of time, but before long, I have a knife made of water. It isn’t really in a good state for precision cutting, but I’m about to change that.

With a great deal of willpower, I’m able to freeze the blade solid, _still using my Water element._ Mari stares at the construction, amused. 

“Guess you’re better with spears, eh?”

Although the cutting edge is quite sharp, the flat of the blade isn’t especially so, marked with imperfections.

I shrug nonchalantly. “Or perhaps I wanted it like this on purpose. See, look.”

I lightly drag the flat of the blade across our captive’s face. It’s sharp enough to cut through flesh, but rough enough to make the cuts _tear_ rather than slice.

She whimpers in pain. 

“Oh. I see.” Mari blinks. “Carry on, then.”

_Well, she was completely right. I’m better with Ice than I am Water by a sizable margin. It just so happens that my lesser ability with Water over Ice provides a convenient excuse._

“Ah, but we have a dilemma now. Look, I can use either the flat of the blade or the cutting edge to skin her, right? Which should I choose?”

Our captive violently jerks, trying to get out of the ropes. 

“No, no. You can’t be doing that.” I say, moving down to her right leg. “Well, I guess you’ve chosen the place, haven’t you?” I say cheerily.

“No…no… _no!_ ” She kicks as much as she can, but a quick jolt from Mari paralyzes her enough to where she no longer has control over her muscles.

“Well, since you decided to be stubborn, I guess I’ll use this side.” I say cheerily, flipping the blade sideways.

Then I apply it to her skin and _yank_ downwards. Her eyes widen as her mouth falls open in an attempted scream, but I clamp my hand over her mouth with enough force to prevent much sound coming off. With the other hand, I wield my bloodied knife.

“I think three slices should be convincing, right? So that’s one…”

Blood splatters across the ground.

“Two.”

With an incredibly wet sound, a strip of flesh falls to the flooring.

“Three. Hey, you’re fucking up the tent with your blood. I think that merits another one.” 

Her body jerks, then goes still as she faints. Mari wordlessly shocks her back to consciousness as I release my grip on her mouth.

“Want to talk, yet?” I ask. “And, I mean…tell the truth., this time?”

“Y-Yes…oh gods, my _leg_ …yes, yes, I’ll talk…!” 

“Stop whining. I warned you.” I lecture her. “Now, talk, or I’ll finish the job.”

Without hesitation, although frequently interrupted by whimpers of pain and stuttering, she spills everything we need to know. Setsuna’s story was accurate, but she adds a few more details; she independently planned the whole thing upon seeing her, and expected Setsuna to go through with it as a result of her financial power and importance as a citizen. She would have taken Setsuna, forced her to hide in a hidden safe room in one of the houses, and returned later on for her. There’s a lot of holes in her plan — how did she know of the existence of the safe room? What was it supposed to even be for? What exactly was her plan for getting around us ninja? The answer, or so it seems, was luck. The safe room was something she knew about because she frequents this village often, and wanted somewhere to run if she needed to. 

As for getting around us? Amazingly enough, she didn’t have a plan for that. She just…expected to be able to get away.

“Seriously…how disrespectful can you get…?” I mutter. She cringes away. 

“No, no. I won’t punish you for telling me the truth, so long as it _was_ the truth, right?” I glance at Mari, who nods. 

“Well. That’s all, then. Mari, do you mind reporting to our handler, then securing the area? I will… _guard_ our client.” 

The Storm User sends me a sharp look, which I match. 

“…Don’t go overboard.” She warns.

“I won’t give her more than she deserves.” I say evenly.

She shakes her head, but walks away anyways, shutting the tent flap behind her.

“…So I’m…I’m free now, right…?” The woman says, looking utterly exhausted. A pained look still mars her face. 

I laugh coldly. 

“You’re a fool if you’d ever believed that.”

“But I…But you said—!” 

“No…” I breathe out. “I don’t think you understand one bit, the situation you’re in…” 

“Right now? Right now, I am your God. I will do what I want to you. You don’t get a say in the matter. Sure, I said that we were done before. _I lied._ You’ve given us everything we needed to know, that’s true.”

“Then…then you don’t have any reason to—“ 

“I don’t take kindly to people trying to rape my friends.”

I can see the exact moment she realizes how fucked she is. Instant fear overwhelms her expression, and she passes out a moment later.

Slapping her until she wakes up seems to suffice, but she screams when she realizes what I’ve been hititng her with.

“…What’s wrong?” I ask, holding the strip of meat I’ve cleaved from her leg in my free hand. 

Her eyes widen and I’m immediately able to guess that she’s about to vomit—

“Don’t even think about it.” My free fist smashes into the top of her throat, crushing it and preventing her action. Of course, it spurs a different problem entirely, namely that I’ve inflicted what is dangerously close to a mortal wound — but my threat from before rings true. I am also a healer.

_Indirect healing…with sufficient will and intent, the Etheria of the healer can be consumed in order to massively jump-start the healing process of another. Caution must be taken to avoid burning out the nervous system of the recipient, but it’s not too hard to do with enough control._

Once I have a good enough grasp of my will, I flood a bit of Etheria into her system — perhaps three years worth of my lifespan, and it heals both her destroyed leg and crushed throat.

I wince at the feeling. It’s such a strange feeling, to feel your life flowing away. Like you’re slowly being emptied from the inside out. 

_But it was worth it._

So, as I begin healing her shattered throat — another year of life energy — I conversationally ask her, “Well? Ready to talk?”

Of course she can’t talk — and what would she even talk about? She’s told us everything we need to know. It was a rhetorical question. 

To _punish_ her for _disobeying_ , I hit her twice quickly with the flat of the blade once more. On the backswing, something catches against her cheek, and flesh _tears_ , causing a jagged laceration to form. 

Her shrieks are gurgled, but I get the point anyways.

“What’s wrong? This is what you wanted, right?” 

Her body language screams no. 

“Ah, but that can’t be right. You must have wanted this. You’re a masochist, aren’t you? Don’t worry. I’m just giving you what you want.” I smash her stomach with the hilt of my knife, forcing her to cough up blood through her still-raw throat.

“H-How could I have—“ Huh, she’s talking again? I hit her in the face again, putting a stop to that.

“How could you have wanted this? Well, it’s simple logic, really.” I grab her forcefully by her jaw, making her look into my eyes. And I spit out:

_“You wronged a ninja.”_

“Not just any ninja, too.” My voice goes back to its pleasant conversational tones. “You had to piss _me_ off.” 

“Know this, lady. I don’t care about the fallout of what I’m doing here. If it means I get to cause _even one more second of suffering to you…I’ll savor it. Whatever punishment you can bring.”_ My knife begins shaving the flesh off her shoulder, as my other hand clamps around her mouth with bruising force, preventing her from screaming.

Almost business-like, like I’m taking apart an animal. Not too far off from the truth, to be blunt. Three slashes, and I’ve shaved off a layer of skin. 

Huh. An animal, hm?

“I wonder what you would taste like cooked.” I muse. I stab my ice knife into the ground next to me and aspect-shift to Fire. One minute.

She spends most of that time cowering, recovering her strength.

“You—m-monster—“ 

“Ah? That’s good. It seems you’re finally beginning to know your place, eh?” I crack my knuckles. “So, arms or legs?”

“…What…?”

“Which do you value more?”

If she had been scared of me earlier, she’s now absolutely terrified of me, pressing back against the wall as far as she can go.

“Hey, hey, don’t keep me waiting. Or I’ll do both. Choose already, would you?” 

“……l-legs…” 

Ah, she’s probably thinking she’ll be able to live some semblance of a normal life without use of her legs, eh?

“Arms it is.”

“B-But you — _AAAAAAH!”_

Without hesitation, I reach forward and seize her left wrist in my grasp, flames licking at her flesh. Instantly, the scent of burning meat fills the room, as I clamp my hand over her mouth once more—

“Ah, that does smell quite nice.” I note clinically, even as I internally pull my Veil farther. 

_It reeks. It’s a stench I’ll never forget, the smell of a person burning alive._

“Oh, what’s wrong? You thought I’d really let you have the choice?" I mock, pausing to pat her on the head. Then I heal the damage, shifting back to my Water aspect to do so. “There, there. We’re almost done. I think you’re pretty close to understanding your place now.”

“W-W-W-What….what do…you w-want…?” She mutters weakly. 

My face brightens artificially. “You’ve finally asked! And here I thought you never would. We could have skipped this whole thing if you had just said that.”

_A lie, of course._

“What I want, you say? Well, that much should be obvious, of course.” I reply dryly. “It’s for you to go back to your normal life.”

Her eyes go wide. “…What…!?” 

“I’m not joking.” I say seriously. “With a small caveat, of course — you stop fucking with ninja and little kids. Not everyone is as lenient as me, and I’m not about to subject some other people to your shit.”

She trembles. “You…Y-You want me to _stay_ …”

“Gods, how slow are you…? Yes. You will keep your business in Alune, go about your normal daily life, and do whatever the fuck it is you normally do. I don’t care as long as you keep your money here.”

“…And I suppose you’ll come v-visit me if I try to leave, won’t you?” She mutters.

“Ah, no, no, no. That kind of thinking won’t do at all. See, this is why I had to keep going. Your dumb ass hasn’t realized the truth yet…which is ironic, because it’s a fact you were exploiting just a few days ago.”

“ _Whoever has the power has control.”_

“If you’re even thinking about escaping, you don’t respect my power.” I reply simply, bringing the knife closer. Her eyes widen. 

“W-Wait, no, t-that’s not…!” 

I tsk disapprovingly. “Well, there are a couple of alternatives. You can fuck right on out of Alune if you leave, oh, about 90% of your assets behind. I expect those to go to me, if you take that route.” 

Although, upon thinking of the consequences—

“Or to some other charity, that’s better. I don’t care. Suicide’s an option for you, too. But I don’t think it’s one you’ll take, is it? Although it’d be pretty funny, not going to lie. Either way, the money stays. If you want to leave, detach yourself from the money. What’ll it be?” 

“I’ll — I’ll stay!” She says, panicked.

“Ah, if you say so.” I smile. “But keep in mind, if you try to go back on our deal, well… _then, you won’t be my client. And I can do what I wish to you, then. Please remember…if you break your side of the deal, there is nothing you can do that will stop me from_ **_tearing you apart._ ** _”_

She understands immediately, assenting at once.

“I really have no intention of bothering you again, so long as you follow my rules. And they _are_ quite lenient rules, aren’t they?” I ask. She nods frantically.

“Good. Then we ought to have no problems with each other.” As I speak, I’ve finished healing the last of her injuries. Although there isn’t anything I can do for the mental trauma I’ve put her through, even if I had _wanted_ to fix that.

“Are we at an understanding?” I inquire.

“We…we a-are.” She struggles to her feet, faltering once. The phantom feeling of her injuries must still be haunting her. 

“I’m glad.” I reply cheerfully. “I’d hate to have to… _discipline_ you once more. Now, head back to your bedding.”

I turn to walk away, dissolving the ice knife that I’ve created.

“Oh, this should go without saying, but…you won’t need Setsuna to accompany you in the wagon. **_I_ ** shall guard you in her place. I trust you’ll have no problems with that.” 

“…O-Of course not…” She mutters weakly.

“I’m glad.” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” 

Without another word, I leave the tent. Having already sensed his presence, I’m unsurprised to see my handler, there, waiting for me.

“Let’s go for a walk.” He says flatly. There’s absolutely no indication of how he feels right now — he could be planning on congratulating me on my first interrogation, or killing me and stowing my body behind a tree, and I wouldn’t know either way.

I meet his eyes. “Understood, sir.”

We head out a fair distance, out of easy eavesdropping range. But not so far that I think he can kill me without alerting the camp. 

“You understand that I’ll need to officially punish you for this, right?” He begins. “That was…that was so far beyond insubordination that I could have you removed from the force altogether.” 

I know I shouldn’t push my luck here, but…

“Then why didn’t you stop me?”

He sighs. 

“Because I understand. If someone had fucked with Hikaru that way…I wish I could have done the same as you.” 

“…I see.” I say, and I do. 

_Hikaru Kozakura. She left the force as a fifth-star, but became an elite. An extreme rarity. Yet she has resisted all attempts to get her to take on missions — although she’s hit the point where she’s better off not doing them at all, so it works out._

“Yuki of Alune. In response to gross negligence and insubordination, I hereby demote you to a first-star ninja. Additionally, your team leader status has been suspended. Do you understand your punishment?” 

I nod. “It is acceptable.”

“Let the records show you have been punished.”

 _Understandable. I’ve committed what was frankly a horrible crime. While on mission, too. It’s an incredible breach of conduct. I hate it, but it’s_ _deserved._

“Is that all, sir?” I ask. 

As it turns out…it isn’t.

“Yuki of Alune. In response to your overall performance on the battlefield, and in particular your exceptional ability to adapt and improvise, you are hereby receiving a battlefield promotion to third-star ninja, with all the privileges that the rank confers. Additionally, your team leader status has been reinstated. Congratulations.”

My eyes widen. “Sir?”

He turns away, back towards our camp. “Understand, Yuki. Emotion has no place in the ninja world. But yet, it is everything that makes you human. It’s up to you to identify where you stand. Are you a human first, or a ninja? Which is better for the village? Which is better for you?”

He glances back towards me. “Which is best for the people you want to protect?” 

He departs, leaving me stunned where I stand. 

“But the answer is obvious, isn’t it?” I whisper bitterly to myself, the Ice draining away from me. 

“Before everything, before being a ninja, before being an _aberrant..._ I am, first of all, a human. Is it so wrong to want to be both?”

Unable to find the answer to that question, I shake my head and make my way back to the camp.

_I do know one thing, though._

_If I must choose one day, to be a human or be a ninja…if the time comes where I must sacrifice Setsuna for my duty…_

_Fuck being a ninja. I’ll protect the one I care about most._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who've read this chapter, you can skip the next.


	29. (3.3.4) (Safe) Black and White, Part 4

#  **2.3.4 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Black and White,** **Part 4**

[Yuki tortures the client.]

“There, there.” I say mockingly. “We’re almost done. I think you’re pretty close to understanding your place now.”

“W-W-W-What….what do…you w-want…?” She mutters weakly. 

My face brightens artificially. “You’ve finally asked! And here I thought you never would. We could have skipped this whole thing if you had just said that.”

_ A lie, of course.  _

“What I want, you say? Well, that much should be obvious, of course.” I reply dryly. “It’s for you to go back to your normal life.”

Her eyes go wide. “…What…!?” 

“I’m not joking.” I say seriously. “With a small caveat, of course — you stop fucking with ninja and little kids. Not everyone is as lenient as me, and I’m not about to subject some other people to your shit.”

She trembles. “You…Y-You want me to  _ stay _ …”

“Gods, how slow are you…? Yes. You will keep your business in Alune, go about your normal daily life, and do whatever the fuck it is you normally do. I don’t care as long as you keep your money here.”

“…And I suppose you’ll come v-visit me if I try to leave, won’t you?” She mutters.

“Ah, no, no, no. That kind of thinking won’t do at all. See, this is why I had to keep going. Your dumb ass hasn’t realized the truth yet…which is ironic, because it’s a fact you were exploiting just a few days ago.”

“ _ Whoever has the power has control.” _

“If you’re even thinking about escaping, you don’t respect my power.” I reply simply, bringing the knife closer. Her eyes widen. 

“W-Wait, no, t-that’s not…!” 

I tsk disapprovingly. “Well, there are a couple of alternatives. You can fuck right on out of Alune if you leave, oh, about 90% of your assets behind. I expect those to go to me, if you take that route.” 

Although, upon thinking of the consequences—

“Or to some other charity, that’s better. I don’t care. Suicide’s an option for you, too. But I don’t think it’s one you’ll take, is it? Although it’d be pretty funny, not going to lie. Either way, the money stays. If you want to leave, detach yourself from the money. What’ll it be?” 

“I’ll — I’ll stay!” She says, panicked.

“Ah, if you say so.” I smile. “But keep in mind, if you try to go back on our deal, well… _ then, you won’t be my client. And I can do what I wish to you, then. Please remember…if you break your side of the deal, there is nothing you can do that will stop me from  _ **_tearing you apart._ ** _ ” _

She understands immediately, assenting at once.

“I really have no intention of bothering you again, so long as you follow my rules. And they  _ are  _ quite lenient rules, aren’t they?” I ask. She nods frantically.

“Good. Then we ought to have no problems with each other.” As I speak, I’ve finished healing the last of her injuries. Although there isn’t anything I can do for the mental trauma I’ve put her through, even if I had  _ wanted  _ to fix that.

“Are we at an understanding?” I inquire.

“We…we a-are.” She struggles to her feet, faltering once. The phantom feeling of her injuries must still be haunting her. 

“I’m glad.” I reply cheerfully. “I’d hate to have to… _ discipline _ you once more. Now, head back to your bedding.”

I turn to walk away, dissolving the ice knife that I’ve created.

“Oh, this should go without saying, but…you won’t need Setsuna to accompany you in the wagon.  **_I_ ** shall guard you in her place. I trust you’ll have no problems with that.” 

“…O-Of course not…” She mutters weakly.

“I’m glad.” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” 

Without another word, I leave the tent. Having already sensed his presence, I’m unsurprised to see my handler, there, waiting for me.

“Let’s go for a walk.” He says flatly. There’s absolutely no indication of how he feels right now — he could be planning on congratulating me on my first interrogation, or killing me and stowing my body behind a tree, and I wouldn’t know either way.

I meet his eyes. “Understood, sir.”

We head out a fair distance, out of easy eavesdropping range. But not so far that I think he can kill me without alerting the camp. 

“You understand that I’ll need to officially punish you for this, right?” He begins. “That was…that was so far beyond insubordination that I could have you removed from the force altogether.” 

I know I shouldn’t push my luck here, but…

“Then why didn’t you stop me?”

He sighs. 

“Because I understand. If someone had fucked with Hikaru that way…I wish I could have done the same as you.” 

“…I see.” I say, and I do. 

_ Hikaru Kozakura. She left the force as a fifth-star, but became an elite. An extreme rarity. Yet she has resisted all attempts to get her to take on missions — although she’s hit the point where she’s better off not doing them at all, so it works out. _

“Yuki of Alune. In response to gross negligence and insubordination, I hereby demote you to a first-star ninja. Additionally, your team leader status has been suspended. Do you understand your punishment?” 

I nod. “It is acceptable.”

“Let the records show you have been punished.”

_Understandable. I’ve committed what was frankly a horrible crime. While on mission, too. It’s an incredible breach of conduct. I hate it, but it’s_ _deserved._

“Is that all, sir?” I ask. 

As it turns out…it isn’t.

“Yuki of Alune. In response to your overall performance on the battlefield, and in particular your exceptional ability to adapt and improvise, you are hereby receiving a battlefield promotion to third-star ninja, with all the privileges that the rank confers. Additionally, your team leader status has been reinstated. Congratulations.”

My eyes widen. “Sir?”

He turns away, back towards our camp. “Understand, Yuki. Emotion has no place in the ninja world. But yet, it is everything that makes you human. It’s up to you to identify where you stand. Are you a human first, or a ninja? Which is better for the village? Which is better for you?”

He glances back towards me. “Which is best for the people you want to protect?” 

He departs, leaving me stunned where I stand. 

“But the answer is obvious, isn’t it?” I whisper bitterly to myself, the Ice draining away from me. 

“Before everything, before being a ninja, before being an  _ aberrant... _ I am, first of all, a human. Is it so wrong to want to be both?”

Unable to find the answer to that question, I shake my head and make my way back to the camp.

_ I do know one thing, though. _

_ If I must choose one day, to be a human or be a ninja…if the time comes where I must sacrifice Setsuna for my duty… _

_ Fuck being a ninja. I’ll protect the one I care about most.  _

  
  



	30. (2.3.5) Black and White, Closing

#  **2.3.5 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Black and White, Closing** ** _[Kaito’s Perspective]_**

_ I find my master lounging in his tent, idly staring up at the night sky. _

_ “Yo, Kaito. What do you need?” His voice is totally nonchalant, like he wasn’t the one who… _

_ I snort. This guy… _

_ “I don’t know how you did it, but…all of this was you, wasn’t it?” I say. _

_ “Hm?” He asks, apparently disinterested. Years of experience, however, have taught me that it’s moments like these where he pays the most attention. _

_ “That drug you had me concoct a few days ago…something to interfere with cognitive and rational thought. That entire shitshow. They’re undoubtedly related.”  _

_ He glances at me. “Yes. I had my suspicions about that woman, and the kind of things she did. All I did was act on them to prove her guilt. I wasn’t sure just how things would play out, but it was good enough, in the end. Things went better than I could have ever imagined.”  _

_ He turns back to face the sky. “You should know by now, don’t you?” He asks me.  _

_ I do.  _

_ “The way the air feels…there’s war on the horizon. I don’t know when, but…soon. And my kids are going to be ready for it. No matter what I have to do…I’ll make sure they’re strong enough to face it head on.” _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus closes out 2.3, and all of Act 2. 
> 
> Congratulations. If you've made it this far, you can consider yourself to have finished the "prologue" for the entire story.
> 
> Act 3 time-skips to Mari's examination after a quick overview. See you there! 
> 
> Read and review~


	31. (3.1.1) Consequence, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally at Mari's fourth-star examination! This first fight is fairly analytical, but I promise the second one will be much...quicker.
> 
> Also, if you've made it this far, I feel obliged to say that I have a *small* Discord server for Spellborne. It contains *artwork*. DM me if you want a link.

#  **3.1.1 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Consequence, Part 1**

The aftermath of the mission winds up being quite smooth, surprisingly enough.

Our mission was a success. The client was escorted, did her business, and was safely escorted back. 

She didn’t seem to get into any official trouble, nor did we, and our handler instructed us to keep our mouths shut about what really happened. So in a way, she did get off free.

That’s relative, though. After all, she knows I’m watching her. So I have a servant of sorts, although I’ve no idea what I should do with her yet. Solving all of my future money problems is nice, though. After all, she _is_ quite wealthy. 

I feel uneasy about the situation all the same, though. 

Of my teammates, Mari seems to be aware of the fact that I went ahead and tortured our client after she left; unsurprising, given that I’d practically said as much. She doesn’t seem to know what to do with the information, though, and keeps it to herself. 

Setsuna, on the other hand…she has no idea what I’ve done, nor do I plan to enlighten her. I don’t know what her reaction would be. 

Her desire to grow stronger has only multiplied, though. She works herself to the bone every day, perhaps because she’s realized the same truth I have.

_Power is control._

And I, in turn, not wanting to be left behind, do the same.

Emotionally, she seems mostly alright. At night she has no problems cozying up to me, and she’s still as affectionate as always.

Perhaps a little _more_ so than usual, to be honest. I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s strange and not the reaction I’d have expected, but…well, I won’t complain either, not when she really does seem okay. 

We take on more missions, but they’re not nearly as exciting as our first, thankfully enough. And between those, we do a ton of training, getting stronger and stronger.

Three months pass in the blink of an eye. Then, before we know it…

…

The circular observation deck in the arena gives us an excellent view of the field. It isn’t especially complicated. In the center lies a decently-sized circular lake, and surrounding it is a dense forest that blocks much of the view. This combined lake-forest area is about three hundred meters in diameter. After that, the rest of the arena is mostly plains, although there are occasional hills and dips that could make terrain interesting. The whole arena is perhaps…five hundred meters across?

For her examination, Mari has to win two back-to-back matches, one against a third-star competitor taking the fourth-star exam and another against a _fifth-star_ ninja. For the latter, she will receive a brief report on his skills (although it won’t be completely comprehensive) and will have five minutes on the field to rest and prepare before he enters. 

It gets tougher than that, though. For the match against the third-star, she has to treat him like someone who could cause a diplomatic incident if they were found to be severely harmed — so she can’t do anything that would cause visible injury or lasting damage. These types of missions are called VIP retrieval.

A previously blank blackboard lights up, startling me.

"Is that...a seal construct?"

Setsuna stares at it, grinning. "It's a seal board! Look! Chloe White made this..." She traces her hand over it. "It uses a really complicated network of seals and runes in order to shine in certain patterns."

"Sorry, but who's that?"

"She's an inventor from Arcacia! Well, a prisoner, technically, but she wanted to live here instead, so she snuck out and...well, that's not important. Anyways, she makes seal inventions such as the freezer and the chakra lamp, and even the shower system..."

_Sounds like a bit of hero worship. Justified, though, if she's the one who did all those things..._

The lights on the board change, showing the approximate statistics and specializations of the first two participants. 

**Mari — Front-Line Powerhouse**

CQC: 6*  
Ninja Arts: 3* (6*)  
Special: **Storm** 6*  
Strength: 3* (5*)  
Speed: 5* (7.5*)  
Stamina: 4*  
Intelligence: 5.5*   
Stealth: 3*  
Overall Combat: 6*

**Miyuki Nara — Elusive Assassin**

CQC: 4*  
Ninja Arts: 2.5*  
Special: **Seal** 4* **  
**Strength: 2*  
Speed: 5.5*   
Stamina: 2*   
Intelligence: 7*   
Stealth: 6*   
Overall Combat: 4*

“That’s not good for her.” I note. 

“The fact that her opponent is a stealth specialist and she can’t respond to the situation by blowing the whole place apart? Yeah, definitely.” Setsuna agrees.

In cases like this, normally Setsuna and I are able to provide her with the versatility needed, or to outright handle it ourselves. However, this time we aren’t there for her. The proctors must have noted this weakness of hers and selected an opponent specifically designed to counter her. 

There’s something else potentially worrisome, too…

“A seal user…” Setsuna murmurs, looking thoughtful. “A lower rank than I am, but even so…”

It’s this Miyuki’s intelligence that’s the problem. Even a basic understanding of seals gives you quite a bit of room for…creativity. And seventh-star intelligence? That’s insane. That statistic isn’t measured purely on paper intelligence — they also judge and place especially heavy weight on combat analysis, for example. 

All of this on a third-star fighter. The fact that he’s managed to get this far despite rather mediocre physical statistics heavily implies a mastery of battlefield manipulation and stealth — the exact kind of opponent Mari will struggle to fight on her own.

“Mari, please make your way to the field.” A male announcer’s voice rings out.

From the opposite balcony, Mari gracefully flips off the edge with a powerful leap, landing in the water. 

“Look, Yuki, if you look past the light, you can see some of the arrays…although it looks like they’re encrypted a bit. Hm, I could try peeling that apart. It might be an interesting challenge, right?” 

I peer at the board. I’m not able to see anything at first, but when I concentrate a bit more, I’m able to detect the faint prickling of qi. 

_And she can detect that well enough to identify specific seals? Amazing._

“Would it actually be useful?” I ask, curious.

“…Probably not, but it’s good practice for analysis. It’s rare that I get to see something like this, so I want to try dissecting it.” 

I nod.

“Go for it, then. I’ll watch the fight.” I say. Wordlessly, Setsuna turns her attention to the dizzying array in front of her, analyzing and memorizing it.

“You have five minutes to locate the VIP target and subdue him. No serious or permanent harm. Begin.”

A clock appears onto the board, starting at five minutes and steadily ticking down.

A spike of qi indicates that Mari’s trying something, so I focus on her. She’s moved to the middle of the lake…hm…

“Woah, that’s interesting. She’s projecting her active aura as a sphere to use it as a form of echolocation, I think.” I comment. 

Mari releases the energy she’s gathered, sending out a thin, but visible wave of energy throughout the field and back. But…

I frown. “Something went wrong. She looks confused.” 

“Proctor, to clarify, the target is in the room, right?” Mari calls out, regaining her equilibrium. 

There’s no response.

 _“Well, fuck.”_ That’s definitely what she’s thinking right now. But how? What went wrong? I don’t think Mari messed up her technique. It looked perfect. 

“She’s in trouble.” The seal specialist next to me murmurs. She hasn’t looked up the entire time, still busily working on her seals.

“How so?” 

“Assuming Mari’s technique succeeded, which it seems like it did, there’s only one way I can think of to get around that echolocation.” 

_A way to get around it? How? Even if I suppressed my aura hard, it’d still register as a blip on the radar. Anything with qi should be picked up._

“Ah, it’s okay if you don’t know. This is a specialist’s technique.”

“What is it?” I ask, impatient. Mari, clearly stumped, is charging a second pulse. 

“Decryption. By analyzing her qi frequency, he can adjust his aura to create a blind spot in her pulse and phase through it. It’s the same way you use to walk through a qi barrier, actually.”

“Analyzing her cha—that fast?! There was only ten seconds or so between her charge and the pulse!” What Setsuna’s saying isn’t impossible, but that’s a completely ridiculous amount of time to analyze a complete stranger’s qi from such a large distance! 

Setsuna nods. ”And that’s why I think she’s in trouble. But…who knows? I think I’ll watch too. I’ve memorized this thing, so I can analyze it later.” She says, moving back to stand next to me.

“You just want to see if there's anything you can steal off this seal user.” I accuse. 

“Mm, that’s definitely a contributing factor. But I also want to see what Mari can do at her absolute best.” Setsuna grins, tilting her head to turn my attention back to the fight.

“That’s quite the intense pulse.” I observe. Mari’s holding a ball of light so bright that it’s hard to directly look at. 

“How wasteful. Even if she intensifies it, it won’t matter. The decryption works the same.”

“She really can’t notice it when he does that?” I ask curiously.

“Well, technically she could. The hole is extremely small, and it shrinks the farther away he is, but there still _is_ a hole. But when you have that much qi in the air, it’s really hard to detect, and the problem is worse since her qi control isn’t exceptional. I don’t know if even I could find the hole — it’s _that_ small.”

“What if she scrambles her qi frequency, or something like that?” I ask.

She gives me a look. “You can’t. Your frequency is unique to who you are, tied to your very being.”

_Huh. I hadn’t known that. I didn’t even know qi had a frequency. We didn’t go anything like that in school…is that something tied to the highest levels of qi control, maybe…?_

I click my tongue. “So there’s nothing she can do about it, then?”

“She should have changed strategies the second the pulse failed. That’s the only thing she could have done. But I’m not sure if she even has another method, though.” Setsuna looks grim. 

The previously-white ball suddenly shifts color to an electric blue. 

“That’s…isn’t that—“

With a roar of exertion, she smashes the ball into the ground, sending a massive pulse of lightning throughout the arena. Even from behind a pane of glass, I can feel a tingle of electricity. It must have taken an incredible amount of qi to do that.

Surprised, her enemy — Miyuki — falls out of one of the trees in the _plains._ I’m not entirely sure how he managed that, but it _was_ clever. No one would expect him to hide where there was no cover at all, but somehow he made some for himself. 

With the stealthy ninja’s position revealed, Mari immediately makes a beeline for him. Her top speed is incredible, especially boosted up on her Storm qi as she goes straight through the trees, but…

“It’s a fake.” I murmur. 

It’s hard to tell, but…there are signs. Namely, that the body hasn’t even twitched ever since it fell out of the tree. You could chalk that up to unconsciousness, but…that’s just too convenient. 

The issue is compounded when the ragdoll explodes as she approaches, leaving Mari unable to even check the body. 

“Two minutes. Not good.” Setsuna notes, looking pensive.

This opponent…knows exactly how to exploit her mindset and his abilities. It’s been over three minutes and she isn’t any closer to locating him, and she’s now dropped two of those aura bombs, one of which she had to overcharge with her Storm element. Her qi capacity is above average, but those had to have been very intensive. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was at half her capacity or less, now.

_How’d he even get that dummy there? What a weird thing to prepare. It’s like he…knew exactly what—_

_Oh. I guess you would if you cheated, wouldn’t you? You’d know the battlefield, the parameters of your opponent…you might even be able to prepare traps ahead of time._

“This Miyuki…definitely deserves his promotion, doesn’t he? I have no doubt that he was more prepared for a normal ninja, who would search by looking or through a sensory technique. I doubt he was prepared to need to decrypt her chakra today, but he still identified the technique over a presumably great distance and countered appropriately. Then he used a fake-out to draw her attention and stall for time, too.” Setsuna says, sounding impressed.

“Indeed. His talent for improvisation and adaptation is incredible, assuming that he was running off of little to no information.” I say. 

_And even if he wasn’t, his ability to actually find useful information and utilize it to his advantage is very good._

“She’s doing it again.” Setsuna says, sighing. I peer down. 

Sure enough, she’s charging a third ball. 

Wait, no, something’s _definitely_ different about this one—

She splits the ball in two, one held in each hand, and jumps straight up.

With a sound like a cannon, Mari goes flying forward towards the forest, trails of wind blasting her forward for a second before her Storm Aura kicks in. 

Ah, I see. She used the wind for an initial boost, but flipped to her Storm element in preparation for combat and to let her take a more…direct route. Interesting.

From the corner of my eye, I can see a shadow flit between the trees.

“Game, set, and match. She’s found him.” 

“Don’t underestimate a seal user.” Setsuna warns. “I don’t know what he’s capable of, but it’d be wrong to count him out, no matter how powerful of a close-combat fighter Mari is.” 

“That’s true, but I don’t think he’s entirely aware of what _Mari_ is capable of, either.” I say, glancing at her. 

Moments later, her opponent is sent flying out of the forest at high speed, crashing through a tree before skidding across the ground and coming to a stop.

_What happened to ‘no serious injuries?!’_

But surprisingly, Mari isn’t immediately eliminated, and the reason for that becomes clear.

_She wrapped him in her Storm qi…? Ah, so it was like a shield…?_

“Ah, she threw him out of his cover. Now it’ll be much harder for him to run or hide.” 

Miyuki stands up and begins running away, apparently uninjured. That abruptly changes when a lightning bolt flies high from the forest, _curves_ , and strikes him in the back, sending him tumbling down.

“She didn’t have a line of sight on him. That bolt was going to miss.” Setsuna says, looking surprised. “How did she aim and curve it?”

I frown, thinking back to everything I know about Mari’s abilities, combining it with my own knowledge…

“Polarity?” I guess. “She set an electric charge on him with her Storm barrier and used it to lock on a bolt of the opposite charge. That’s why it curved, and it’s how she knew where he was running to. Actually, that’s probably how she caught him out with her qi pulse the second time, too.”

“But he would have decrypted it, wouldn’t he have?” Setsuna asks, confused.

“I’m sure he tried, but I don’t think it worked. Decryption causes a pass-through effect, doesn’t it? I don’t think it would stop the charge from connecting. Could you walk through a fireball with decryption? The heat would still transfer and you would still be burned, right?” 

Setsuna nods. “You can’t decrypt a fireball for _exactly_ that reason. Ah, so the same with her charged pulse, then? Although it didn’t do any damage, it set a charge on him that she picked up on and chased. Ah, so he did a decryption, and…he must have unsealed that puppet of his as well, although I have no idea how he managed to place it there in the first place.” 

“Indeed. The goal was to try and confuse her and buy him time, since he wasn’t sure if he had been detected or not. It’s just his bad luck that the ‘detection’, so to speak, updated in real time.” I analyze. 

The match is declared over, with a mere minute left on the clock. I was wondering if her lightning bolt would have burned him, given its intensity, but it looks like it simply overloaded the electric shield Mari had placed on him, giving him a low-level but full-body electrical shock that knocked him out. What an incredibly innovative usage of her qi, and one that had to require an amazing amount of control, especially for her. 

But even so…

Mari crosses over to where her defeated opponent is being carted out, apparently making sure that he’s okay. 

  
“Her second match is going to be trouble, though…” Setsuna murmurs. “That fight forced her to burn at least half of her qi, if not more. And it was supposed to be a low-intensity, intellectual fight.” 


	32. (3.1.2) Consequence, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Is Mari overhyped?"

#  **3.1.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Consequence, Part 2**

Mari disappears from the arena, presumably being briefed on her second opponent. As she does, the statistics of her second opponent appears on the board.

**Haruka Mizushima — E** **lusive Close Combat Specialist  
**

CQC: 7.5*   
Ninja Arts: 5.5*   
Special: **Wind** 6* **Healing** 5* **Seals** 4*  
Strength: 5*  
Speed: 7*   
Stamina: 5*  
Intelligence: 4.5*   
Stealth: 6*   
Overall Combat: 6* 

**Mari — Front-Line Powerhouse**

CQC: 6*  
Ninja Arts: 3* (6*)  
Special: **Storm** 6*  
Strength: 3* (5*)  
Speed: 5* (7.5*)  
Stamina: 4*  
Intelligence: 5.5*   
Stealth: 3*  
Overall Combat: 6*

“Elusive Close Combat Specialist?” I muse. “With a seven point five star stat in Taijutsu, as a fifth-star ninja?”

“Not just that, but a Wind user, too, and someone who can keep up with her in close combat. This is definitely someone picked to counter her hard. Even with her full strength, this kind of opponent would be incredibly tricky.” 

What an intense examination. But this kind of thing is necessary, to weed out the weaker ninja from rising in rank, and in turn limiting them to safer missions. Mari’s anything but weak, though. I have faith that she can carry through here.

Mari wanders back out onto the arena, making her way to the forest area and looking around. Her second opponent, Haruka, vaults onto the field, landing on the lake’s surface. He has long black hair that goes down to his waist, intense green eyes, and wears a lightly-patterned blue kimono. Mari glances at him almost carelessly from over her shoulder, but I can tell that she’s analyzing his appearance as well. Her eyes narrow.

It’s almost certainly his hair that is giving her pause. Ninja simply don’t grow out their hair without a good reason, because it is an incredible liability at close distances. In Mari’s case, she runs an electric current through it whenever she’s fighting that will give a nasty, debilitating shock to whoever gets tagged by it, making it a weapon rather than a risk. 

So for this Haruka to also have long hair means that he’s turned it into a weapon, somehow. And it’s something that she has to be cautious of. 

It does give away an important detail about his fighting style, though. After all, if his hair is a weapon, it almost certainly means that he’s a close-range fighter. Of course, that in itself could be a feint, but…it’s much more likely that he’s a close-combat specialist. That’s something we obviously know, but it’s an important clue for Mari, who doesn’t have the info we do.

“No time limit. Subdue the enemy. Begin.” The proctor’s voice announces. 

Without hesitation, Mari flicks out a two-pronged bolt of lightning, aimed at Haruka and at the surface of the lake. Haruka materializes — no, _unseals_ — a katana and deflects the primary bolt. The second bolt goes unnoticed and _ignored_ , even though he should have been shocked through the lake.

“There must be insulation in the hilt.” Setsuna says. “But how did he ignore the lake shock?” 

I’m not too sure on that much myself. It likely has something to do with his Wind affinity, as that element naturally counters lightning, if not direct Storm application. But still…

“Either way, she’s charged him. She can home in hits on him now.” I reply. 

Setsuna looks thoughtful. “I’m not too sure that’s the case.” 

As expected, Mari takes a second to charge a dazzling bolt of lightning that crosses the field in a heartbeat — but Haruka throws his katana upwards, and the technique veers to chase after it, smashing into it and sending it flying at such velocity that it embeds itself in the far opposite wall over two hundred meters away, glowing red-hot.

As if in response, he unseals another, identical katana. Mari looks temporarily surprised, but instead of pursing another attack she jumps away, perching on a tree. He seals the katana back.

“Hm…I see. There’s no time limit, so she can wait him out and recover her strength. She’ll also be able to force him to come to her, on her terrain. Although the lake wouldn’t be a bad place for her to fight, either.” 

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know if he’s a Water user or not, so she can’t play super aggressively.” 

“Indeed, which is why she’s taking the defensive route.”

A _massive_ spike of qi draws both of our attentions. Haruka has both of his hands stretched out at either side of him, wind swirling around him. Mari probes his defense with a precise bolt of lightning, but it fizzles out when the lake water gets sucked into the storm, too, leaving Haruka floating mid-air.

Mari flickers into her _Storm Cloak_ form, her right eye abruptly going neon blue as she drops down onto the ground and crouches. This time, her entire body is sheathed in that bright electric qi, creating an audible crackling sound. And it’s flaring up more and more brightly— 

It’s overridden by a loud creaking sound that signifies the first of many trees being torn from its roots, the wind surrounding the lake now a localized hurricane in intensity. However, its area of effect is rapidly growing, covering the shore closest to the lake. 

Mari ignores the hurricane, the gathering storm coming to a peak— 

**Volt Line.**

A massive _crack_ resounds through the arena, and I’m only able to recognize it later as the _sound barrier being broken._ In less than half a second, Mari takes off from her standing point, pierces the storm, and smashes into her opponent, sending him _blasting_ out of his technique. 

“Holy fu—“

The hurricane fizzles out rapidly without its caster to sustain it, leaving Mari at the bottom of the lake. She wobbles, then falls to her knees, coughing out blood as her energy fizzles out. Despite her evident pain, she’s forced to jump upwards and away, a thin layer of qi protecting her from the worst of the torrent as the lake reclaims its natural place, and eventually retreats backwards onto dry, if muddy ground.

“Mari’s technique, Volt Line…it’s incredibly taxing on her body and qi. That was a gamble, to stop the storm from getting out of control. She rushed it since she had to go through the wind to reach him.” I muse. The raw energy of her technique probably stopped her from taking any damage from the storm, but I’m sure it damaged her internally, even if her body is accustomed to that kind of high-intensity power.

Mari suddenly ducks as a bolt of wind goes whistling where her head used to be, plowing through a handful of trees. Her opponent shows up a second later, katana scything down towards her exposed position.

The red-eyed girl _catches_ the weapon by the blade in her right hand, snaps it with a burst of qi, and wields her stolen fragment like a knife, aiming to exploit _his_ surprise as she slashes upward. He sways back to dodge, then lunges forward, counterattacking with a lunge as Wind swirls around his blade.

In a crackle of electricity, she dashes back twenty meters in an instant, dirt and mud being thrown up into the air. Simultaneously, she hurls the blade in her hand and flips upwards, channeling energy into her arm.

Haruka deflects the blade with ease, before he throws his own broken katana into the air as well. Unsealing a _third_ sword, he floods the sword with Wind energy before slashing at Mari, releasing it in a crescent.

Mari spin-kicks it out of the air, causing it to destabilize in a blast of wind a good distance away. Completing her rotation, she fires a lasso of electrical energy. Haruka tries to deflect it with his sword, but it wraps around the blade. Sensing danger, he lets go as my teammate shouts in exertion, snapping the blade in two. She lands moments later, the lasso curling back to her into a neat loop like it didn’t just cover thirty meters in an instant. 

The entire exchange took under five seconds.

“Incredible.” Setsuna murmurs. “I could barely track what they were doing.” 

The two sword fragments hover by Haruka’s shoulders, both glimmering with channeled energy and leaving his hands free, from which he unseals a fourth and fifth katana that he throws above him. They eventually alight behind him as well.

_What kind of technique is that…? Having the blades hover like that, it’s obviously some kind of Wind technique, but…the control for that, to manipulate each blade individually…_

Mari’s qi spikes at the same time as she spins, the lasso extending to its full length of thirty meters. In a flash, she completes her rotation, and her whip, sparking with energy, rips across the clearing. 

There’s an absolutely tremendous sound as all of the trees in the vicinity collapse, severed at the base. Haruka leaps into the air as Mari begins a second revolution, and the two sword fragments at his back are aimed and sent flying.

The first one thunks into the base of Mari’s whip in an incredible display of accuracy, rendering it immobile. Mari dodges the second one— 

Blood sprays out of her shoulder. But…she dodged it!? With room to spare, even! No, not quite…! The Wind aura around the blade must have cut her! 

Gritting her teeth, Mari snaps her whip, sending the fragment embedded it in flying away before she smacks it out of the air towards him, forcing Haruka to deflect his fragment with yet another katana. It’s hit with such force that it shatters upon contact, inflicting several small cuts on his face.

They heal off a second later. Haruka, apparently unwilling to let her do the same, kicks off of the air with a burst of qi, landing in front of her with a crash. Mari engages her Storm Cloak and they engage in an absolutely vicious series of punches and kicks. 

Suddenly, one of the sword fragments behind Mari are yanked towards her. Reflexively, she flashes sideways, leaving Haruka to catch it in his hand and hurl it once more. 

Unable to simply catch the blade due to the Wind energy infused within it, she dashes away again, gaining some distance this time as she draws on more qi. 

“She must be close to empty by now. She was already low enough at the start of the fight, but she had to blow all that qi on her storm-piercing attack.” I muse.

“Haruka, as well. That storm couldn’t have been cheap either, and she interrupted it mid-cast. But he was fresh at the start of the fight, and he’s overall been more efficient with his qi.” Setsuna says. 

“They’ll need to end this soon with one final attack. Otherwise, they’ll drop of exhaustion. And in this kind of situation, it’s most likely that the second attacker will be the best off, if they can dodge or block the attack of the first.” I note.

“Mari’s going to go first.” Setsuna says confidently. “She’s much lower on qi, I think. And it’s just part of her fighting style. She could probably dodge whatever he throws at her, but…if it’s a feint, or if he has anything left, she won’t have enough left to make a really meaningful attack. 

Once again, our teammate’s Storm Cloak flows over her entire body, flaring up so brightly that it becomes nearly painful to look at.

“It looks like we’ll be able to see how he survived her technique the first time.” Setsuna notes. 

And indeed. He’s flaring his own qi, palms outstretched, and…

“Hey, Setsuna, aren’t those seals on his palms?” I ask, looking closer.

“Yes. They…” Her eyes glitter with qi. “The left is a…stasis seal print, and the right is an unsealing array. The stasis seal is tailored to work on something…about a little taller than his height, and a bit wider. A shield, I think?” Her eyes widen. “A stasis-sealed shield?” 

“Immobile…but unbreakable.” I muse. “That’d be amazing, if limited.” 

Setsuna’s eyes flash. “No, not unbreakable. Only in theory, but…if the seal doesn’t have enough qi…” 

“So it’s a battle of willpower, then?” I ask. She shakes her head.

“It’s whoever commits first. Once he places that seal, it will take him too much time to remove it. So he can only really use it once. But, if he blocks her attack with it, she loses.” She says.

“Ah, I see. But Mari can stop on a pinpoint, which gives her the advantage, doesn’t it?” 

“Indeed. But that’s something he knows, as well. The question is, what will he do about it?”

I use my own reinforcement to zoom in on Haruka’s face.

“I don’t think he has anything planned.” I speculate. “I think this is going to be a game of chicken.”

Qi begins gathering around his wrists, as he prepares to press it all into his stasis seal. But, wait — both wrists?

He slams his palms into the ground, creating a circular whirlwind that is so intense, it…oh, I see. Even with my reinforced vision, the qi is so intense that I can’t pierce the veil to see what he’s doing, or which way he’s facing. 

It’s almost certainly self-sustaining, too. And of course, he can see through his own qi, so he can react to what she’s doing…and on top of that, it’s so close to him that…

“If she stops for more than a split second in that, she’ll be torn apart. The only way she can hit him is by going right through. No stopping, this time.” Setsuna murmurs, concern on her face.

In other words…a single misstep and Mari will die. 

For the first time this match, Mari speaks up. “Hey. You there. You understand the stakes that you’ve raised, right? If you’re going to use a defense like that, I won’t be able to stop until I’m all the way through — and I’ll go right through you to do it. Surrender, instead. I don’t think I can do this without killing you.” 

In response, the winds pick up even more, forcing Mari to jump back a bit. Her eyes narrow.

“Well…I warned you. It was a good fight.” She cracks her knuckles. 

Suddenly, her aura spikes, doubling, tripling over a half-dozen seconds— 

**Volt Line!**

A sonic boom—

And the fight ends in an incredible thunderclap of force and sound.

…What just happened?

From what I saw…

At the range Mari was standing — maybe thirty meters, tops, much less than the distance she had covered before — she would have come into contact with Haruka in a tiny fraction of a second, far too little to react to. So the second she tensed up, he was forced to commit to his shielding.

But it was instead a perfect double-feint, and she slid to the left slightly, then forward, pausing nearly directly in front of the whirlwind. Then, to the right at a ninety-degree angle, before disappearing in a flash too fast for me to follow.

The shield became irrelevant as he came flying out, cloaked in the remnants of Storm qi. They seem to have protected him from instant death — so Mari held back after all, then.

And as for the girl herself…well, she followed through. She punched through, and in the brief moment that she found herself in the eye of the storm, she released all of her qi in a single burst that tore the storm to pieces, sending the wind scattering everywhere in a massive shockwave.

So she minimized damage to Haruka at the very real risk that she would die, if he had reacted in time or had a different defense — although I don’t think _anyone_ could have reacted to the raw speeds that Mari travelled at. 

That was… _Incredible._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering how they're moving while in mid-air, it has absolutely nothing to do with "they're just that good" and everything to do with pushing off the air with chakra and Wind manipulation. I hope that was clear (if it wasn't, please let me know).


	33. (3.1.3) Consequence, Part 3

#  **3.1.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Consequence, Part 3**

The announcer quickly states the conclusion of the fight as medics immediately jump onto the scene. She has a brief conversation with one of them before she jumps over to us, looking gleeful.

“Congratulations, Mari.” I say. “That was an amazing fight to watch.” Even Setsuna’s sporting a look of interest, which is borderline hero-worship coming from her. 

She winces. “Yep, I know. Do you think I could use your services for a bit?” Looking pained, she sits down heavily on the bench, coughing raggedly into her hand. I’m alarmed to note that, when she takes her hand away, that there are traces of blood on her lips.

_That’s right, that technique takes a ton out of her! I can’t believe I forgot!_

“Of course!” I say, rapidly performing a series of scans on her and applying healing where necessarily. Surprisingly, the only external injury she has is that shoulder wound, and it’s only a mild laceration. The major stuff is all internal, a lot of general muscle damage that I try to repair — but there’s enough damage done to where I don’t feel confident healing _all_ of it, so I stick with what I’m confident I’m capable of doing. There’s some minor organ damage, but there’s nothing I can do about that. And, of course, there’s a lot of general strain, which I’m able to fully treat.

In the end, it takes about two minutes or so before I’m done.

“I can’t heal everything, but you’re not about to fall over dead. I’d strongly suggest getting the assistance of a fully trained medic to heal some of the internal stuff; mostly minor joint and organ damage that I don’t think I should be trying to fix. It’s not extremely urgent, but within…a few hours or so, at the latest. After that and you start risking more chronic damage.” 

Mari groans. “I can’t take a nap before I do this?” 

I give her a _look._ “Go visit the hospital after this. I will walk you there.” 

Whatever the Storm user is about to say gets cut off as the proctor jumps up to the spectator’s balcony, followed by our handler. 

_Wait! This guy again?! He was from the mission with that client…as well as from before, when we investigated our handler…_

We instantly salute, as per our protocol. “Sir!” 

Our handler lazily waves us off. “We have some news for you.”

“First of all, Mari. In light of what we’ve just seen, and after discussion with Katsuo here, we’ve seen fit to revise your official scorecard.” Our proctor hands out a form, which we eagerly crowd around.

**Mari —** **Front-Line Powerhouse**

CQC: 7.5*  
Ninja Arts: 6*  
Special: **Storm** 7*  
Strength: 5* (6.5*)  
Speed: 6.5* (8.5*)  
Stamina: 5*  
Intelligence: 5.5*   
Stealth: 3.5*  
Overall Combat: 7*

My eyes widen. That is a _substantial_ increase from what her statistics were listed as at the beginning of the fight, and those were already extraordinarily high for a fourth-star ninja.

_Actually, come to think of it, those high stats are probably what got her such challenging opponents in the first place. That Haruka was definitely not a fifth-star combatant. Mari’s victory was more a highlight of just how good she was, rather than how weak Haruka was. I have no doubt he would have absolutely crush Setsuna and I, even together, but Mari fought him in a weakened state and won decisively._

“This leads us to the second piece of news. As of this moment, you are officially promoted to probational _seventh-star_ ranking.”

Mari’s jaw drops.

“You will need to raise some of your weaker points; particularly, Stamina, Intelligence, and Stealth. You’ll be able to take those specific examinations later on. You won’t be able to take on any seventh-star missions until you have those all up to acceptable standards, but you will be permitted to take on any sixth-star missions or lower. You may consider yourself a sixth-star ninja for official purposes, but understand that you are on the fast track for promotion.” The proctor says.

“I…thank you very much, sir!” She salutes again. 

“Now, Setsuna and Yuki. You are first-star and third-star respectively, correct?” The proctor asks. Mari and Setsuna glance at me, surprised by my ranking. 

_That’s right, they didn’t know about my second promotion. But our proctor is bringing it up for a specific reason._

Mari stiffens. “Proctor, I am strongly of the opinion that their actual skills are well above their official skills, and they have proven invaluable to me over the course of my missions. Additionally, they help cover for a lot of my weaknesses, which is why they were put on my team in the first place.”

I blink. I’m…huh. I hadn’t expected that level of praise from her. 

“What would you estimate their actual skill level at, then?” He asks. 

She scrutinizes us. “Keeping in mind that they are both utility-types designed to support me? Setsuna’s at least a third-star combatant, but of a type similar to my first match opponent. Yuki…I think he’s closer to a proper fourth-star fighter, and he is also a fairly decent healer. Both of them have a ton of untapped potential that our handler is extremely good at coaxing out, and I definitely think they can be very good ninja given the chance.” 

A _fourth-star_ combatant? I carefully keep my face blank as the proctor glances at us. Mari doesn’t know about my Ice abilities yet, so does she think that I am really that good without them? 

“A healer?” He asks, looking interested. 

“Mm. I didn’t want to increase the load on the medic team for the examinations, so I had him help patch me up.” 

“If I may interrupt, sir?” I ask. The man glances at me. 

“Permission granted.”

_I’ll either be shooting myself in the foot, or…_

“I also told her that she should go to the hospital after this.” I say, shooting her a dirty look. “She only had one external wound, but there was a lot of internal damage and strain caused by that dash technique of hers. I was able to alleviate a good amount of it, but it should be looked at by a true professional. I could probably heal it in theory, but I would rather avoid taking the risk with more qualified medical services available.”

He nods. “Correct. What would you rate your healing at?” 

“Four point five.” I say without hesitation. It’s what Hikaru last judged me.

“Consider yourself five.” He says, turning away. “There are too many untrained idiots out there running around with no idea of what they’re doing and trying to do things they aren’t ready for.” 

“T-Thank you.” I stutter, not expecting the compliment or the impromptu promotion — from someone I recognize, too! And, more importantly…well, Hikaru still has to confirm it, but I’m a fifth-star medic now, which means I’ve met her standards for true apprenticeship. Well, it doesn’t matter much, as I’m already her apprentice, but…it’s still cool.

“You.” He points at Mari, hand glowing with blue-green qi. “Sit down. I’m going to heal your internal injuries.” 

Mari sits.

“Hm…this is excellent work. Definitely a five, at least.” He says, sending me an approving look. He concentrates for a few seconds, running his hand up and down, then — “Done. Katsuo, handle the rest.” He heads out abruptly, leaping from our balcony to the judge’s table.

I blink. 

_That was — that was incredibly fast! He healed the rest of the damage so quickly!_

“Heh. He moonlights as a ninth-star medic at the hospital, when he isn’t doing shit like this.” Our handler explains, apparently reading my mind. 

“That would explain much.” I say, surprised.

He inclines his head. “You two are lucky. You have no idea how close you were to getting split up as a team. Mari here saved your asses, although Yuki’s intervention here sealed the deal. Good job.”

I sigh in relief.

“But don’t think you’re out of the woods yet. You two have grown exponentially in the three months I’ve had you, but you need to get better, _faster_ , or you’ll be split anyways due to the power differential. Anticipate being worked even harder when we return. You have three months. Both of you will be participating in the fourth-star examination, so prepare yourself appropriately.” He says. “Yuki, you’re going to have a double load. Work on your combat abilities, but you also need to strengthen your healing. It’ll make you invaluable to Mari, and therefore useful. Setsuna, seals and physical abilities. But, of course, I won’t be neglecting the rest. Those are just things you will need to especially specialize in by the time the examination comes if you want to remain on the team. Understand?” 

_The fourth star examination!? I might be ready by then, but Setsuna?! She’s still a first-star! But there’s no room for discussion. We just have to get that good._

“Yes, sir!” Setsuna and I salute.

“You have the rest of the day off. Go socialize, train, fuck, whatever suits your fancy. Training starts at eight tomorrow in the usual place.” With his piece done, he goes ahead and exits the balcony, presumably heading outside.

I consult my internal clock. It should be about ten in the morning right now. A full day, in other words, of free time. 

“Yuki.” Setsuna says urgently. I glance at her, already knowing what she wants.

“Go.”

The sealer rapidly makes her way to the exit. 

“Huh? What’s wrong with her?” Mari asks. 

“If I had to do it right now, I think I’d be able to make a passable showing at my fourth-star examination. I’m skilled enough in combat to do it, and the theoretical half of it would be laughably easy.” I glance at the Storm User. “Setsuna, though…”

“Ah…she’s a utility ninja, but the physical part tests your abilities in combat…” Mari understands the problem. In individual combat, Setsuna is rather weak; therefore, she has a lot of work to do if she wants to be able to pass the physical portion of the examination. 

“Exactly. We probably won’t see her too much for a while. She’ll be training and training and training.” 

“Huh. Guess that’ll give us a lot of free time, then?” 

“I’ll be training too.” I say dryly. “But a lot less urgently. I can put more focus into refining my healing.” 

Mari grins. “I’m always available to offer my services as a sparring partner.” 

“I’ll remember that when I wake you up at four in the morning.” 

“Oh, I’ll still be up for a fight, but I might punt your ass halfway across Alune.” She retorts, a cheerful smile on her face.

_Heh. It’s always fun to hang out around Mari. She’s definitely the heart of the team._

“On an unrelated note, third-star? When did that happen?”

“During the first mission we had.” I say. “You probably know when.” 

Mari winces. “After you…?” 

I hesitate. I hadn’t really unpacked what I did, keeping the memories sealed off behind the Veil (surprisingly enough, that particular skill had come along quite instinctively). 

But I’m sure that, if I choose to do so, I’ll be able to recall with perfect memory exactly what I did, the same way I could anything else. I just choose not to. 

“Yes.” I say instead. 

“I see.” A conflicted look blossoms on her face, before she asks something strange.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

I clamp down on my instinctive refusal and genuinely think about it. After all, I’ve been thinking for a while that perhaps I should talk it out. Talk out this…I’m not sure quite what this feeling is. 

Setsuna isn’t an option. I don’t want her to know what I did, and to the best of my knowledge, she still remains entirely in the dark about it. So that just leaves Hikaru and Mari. 

_For something like this, I think it’s better to talk to the latter._

“Ah…sure.” 

She blinks, a little surprised. “I hadn’t thought you would agree. Hm…my place?” 

“Sounds good.” I agree readily. 

We head out through the exit and rapidly make her way to her house, jumping off of rooftops to speed up the journey. The atmosphere feels a little tense, and I’m not sure how to break it. In the end, we just don’t say anything until she invites me inside and closes the door behind her.

It’s…well, it’s nice enough? The house structure is exactly the same as mine, although I’d expected that. There are quite a few potted plants around the area, blooming in a wide variety of different colors. It’s clear that they are meticulously taken care of, and practically glow with vibrant energy. 

“I didn’t take you for the type.” I say, gesturing at the flowers.

“Huh? Oh, those.” She replies. “Well…yes. They’re a good way to pass the time, and they really make the place look nice, don’t they?”

I blink. How do they manage when she goes on missions? There’s probably an interesting story behind them, but it’s not what I’m here for. 

She takes a seat on the sofa in the living room, and motions for me to sit next to her. I do. Then, preparing myself for the upcoming conversation, I pull away my Veil entirely. 

“So, about what happened…?” Mari invites me to take the lead. 

“I’m not sure where to start.” I admit. 

“Well, I guess we’ll start with the obvious — have you told Setsuna yet?” 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“That…isn’t a side of me I want her to see.” I reply truthfully. This, at least, is something I’ve put some thought into. Maybe Setsuna has guessed at what I did, or — rather, how far I went. After all, she was there when Katsuo told Mari and I to…interrogate the client. 

“So you’re ashamed of it?” The brunette asks.

I contemplate her words. “Ashamed? No.” 

“Do you regret it?”

_“Hell no.”_

“Why not?” She asks, a very neutral look on her face.

“Because she _deserved_ it.” I say darkly. She inclines her head.

“I’m not inclined to disagree, there. If you aren’t ashamed of it, nor do you regret it, then why do you not want to tell Setsuna about it?” 

“…Because I think she’ll look at me differently, if I told her.” 

Without missing a beat, Mari retorts— 

“So you think that what you’ve done _was_ wrong, then?” 

And I counter— 

“I think that _Setsuna_ might think I’d gone overboard.” 

“Any normal person _would_ have!” She snaps suddenly. I flinch backwards, surprised.

“Be honest with yourself, at least. You didn’t torture her to keep her loyalty to Alune or whatever. That was a rationalization. No, you did it because you wanted to hurt someone! Am I wrong about that?” 

“Of course I wanted to hurt _her!_ ” 

“Why? Why so far? Why did you have to take it so far!?” 

**“Because she was going to rape Setsuna!”** I shout. 

“That doesn’t mean you should have _literally skinned her alive!_ You had no reason to continue the interrogation, and you most definitely did not need to take it as far as you did! _”_

I glare furiously at her. “Why the hell are you protecting her?!” 

She returns my anger tenfold. “Before I am a ninja of Alune, above all, _I am a human being!_ I keep my morals and ethics first! And what you did was _well beyond_ the scope of what you actually _needed_ to do! You didn’t _need_ to torture her like that, but you _chose_ to. And it wasn’t for any real reason at all! You did it for _you_.” 

I rear back. Her words — they ring so similarly to a different conversation not so very long ago, one held in a forest minutes after I had brutalized a human being…

_‘Before everything…before being a ninja, before being an aberrant...I am, first of all, a human…’_

I’d said that, hadn’t I? And I had chosen to put Setsuna first, before any duty of mine.

But my actions there…did they truly benefit Setsuna in any way? Did torturing that woman really help her?

…No. No, it didn’t.

In fact, the only one who really, meaningfully benefitted from that exchange…was me. For revenge. 

Mari…Mari is right, then. Perhaps the reason I’ve felt so…uncertain about all of this…is because I knew, deep down. I knew that my actions that night hadn’t been selfless at all. No, I had taken _quite_ a large amount of satisfaction out of my actions…but if I had truly tried, I’m positive I could have come up with something else. A different path. 

“You’re right.” I admit. She blinks, surprised. “You’re right. What I did was selfish. And…wrong.” 

The anger leaves the brunette’s face. “I…it’s not like I don’t understand _why_ , you know…? I care about Setsuna too, even though I had only known her for a short time then.” 

Mari really did seem to care about Setsuna back then. Her comforting words and gestures brought comfort to my friend where I had no idea what to say or do. And the bond between them has only deepened since. 

_So I’ll admit it. I’ll admit what I did was wrong._

_But I still don’t regret it._

_I never will._

I don’t think telling Mari that would be particularly helpful, though, so I keep it to myself. 

“You still don’t regret it, do you?” The Storm user asks ruefully. 

I stiffen. 

“No.” 

It’s only after that I remember she can detect lies. 

She sighs. “I won’t dissuade you from that, but…you should be careful, holding on to that hate. It’s a useful emotion at times, but a toxic one, too.” 

I barely restrain myself from biting back with a sharp retort. What else, exactly, am I supposed to do?! _Forgive_ her? I’d sooner _die._

Well, not really, but…

I concentrate, pulling my Veil closed again once more. My emotions are getting in the way now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that talking further about this, at this point in time, won’t be helpful.

“I suppose you’re right.” I reply neutrally. 

She’s obviously able to tell that I’ve just told a lie, but doesn’t press it. 

“Well…I’m glad we had this talk.” Mari offers. It even seems somewhat sincere. 

I shrug, not wanting to lie to her face again. It’s not that I didn’t come out of this talk with a better understanding of my position, but… 

Something still unsettles me about this whole mess, and I’m not sure what. 

Mari rolls her eyes, but manages a small grin, all the same. “Alright, shoo. I’m gonna try and catch a nap, then. Today has been tiring.” 

I nod, turning away. But then I pause at the threshold of her living room. 

“…Sorry, Mari.” I say sincerely. 

“Huh?”

“You’re just trying to help me, aren’t you?” 

I don’t have to turn around to know that her face is sporting a gentle smile. “Of course. That’s what I’m here for.” 

“Funny.” I retort. “I thought that was my job on the team.” I turn back, rewarded by the sight of a real smile on her face. 

“Ha. Go train or relax or something, captain. You’d better get promoted in three months, or I’ll never forgive you.” 

I snort, not bothering to respond to that verbally. She and I both know there’s absolutely no chance I _won’t_ get promoted. Waving a hand behind me carelessly, I let myself out.

In the end, although we strongly disagreed on certain beliefs, we still came out of it as friends and teammates.

_You really are a good person, aren’t you, Mari?_

Coming out, though, I’m greeted by a familiar person standing outside of my house, apparently waiting for someone.

“Now…what are you doing here…?”

  
  



	34. (3.1.4) Consequence, Closing

#  **3.1.4 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Consequence, Closing (Setsuna’s POV)**

_ I don’t want to be left behind. _

The thought drives me as I race home, rushing over rooftops specifically reinforced for ninja travel. Fourth-star level? Me? Already? That’s…I’m so far behind, the gap is as wide as the sun and stars.

Right now, I don’t even think I can fight at a second-star level…let alone what I’d need to fight at a fourth-star level. Hell, I’m sure some gifted Academy students could probably beat me in a fair fight. 

To go from that to passing the examination in three months…? It’s just not possible. It’s not. 

But I have to do it. The alternative is unthinkable. If I’m dropped from this team…my life with Yuki and Mari is over.

I have to get stronger. I must. Everything else needs to be put aside for now. Everything. 

_ I might…have to ask  _ him _ for help… _

I grit my teeth. No matter what it takes, I’ll get strong. Three months. Ninety-one days. 

…If I put sixteen hours of my day into training, that’s…1,456 hours. That might be enough. 

No. Eighteen hours will be better. 1,638.

I can get by on three hours of sleep per day. If I put one hour on the side for the rest of my life, eating, cleaning myself…1,820. 

Twenty hours of training per day, for the next ninety-one days. 

If that’s what it takes…I’ll do it. More, if I must. 

  
_ I won’t be left behind. _


	35. (3.2.1) Rivalry, Part 1

#  **3.2.1 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Rivalry, Part 1**

“What are you doing here…?”

The blue-haired young woman is clad in a simple and modest white dress with slits in the sides, a more practical version of her Academy style. What’s new, though, is the thin white ribbon tied into her hair, one that indicates a fourth-star level of Wind Mastery. 

_ Someone’s been working hard.  _

Sayaka grins, waving cheerfully. “What, I can’t say hello to an old friend?”

I’ve known the blunette long enough to see the tension behind her mask. 

“Is that really what you’re here for? Surely you’re not here for a social call.” 

Sayaka looks mildly offended.

“Wait, seriously?” 

The pretty blunette rolls her eyes. “It’s been three months since we’ve talked! We have so much to catch up on!”

She actually looks sincere. It’s enough to make me feel a little bad about doubting her. Despite how much she enjoys teasing me, her friendship  _ has  _ been genuine. At least, it feels like it has been. 

And I’m certainly not upset with her. It’s been months since I’ve even thought about what she had done to me. 

Perhaps I can also seek a little bit of closure from her, regarding my own actions in my first mission…With her attitude, I’m sure she’ll be able to at least understand my position, even if she wouldn’t necessarily agree with it.

_ Then again, this is the woman who nearly drowned me to try getting me to talk. Perhaps we’re more alike than I’d thought.  _

And beyond that…Sayaka isn’t exactly unpleasant to talk to, either. I have fun in our little verbal spars, after all. 

Well, I’d been planning on checking up on Setsuna, but she can wait for a bit. She probably doesn’t want to be disturbed right now. 

“Alright, sure. Let’s go hang out. Your place?” I offer.

“Hm…sounds good to me.” Sayaka says, surprising me with her lack of protest. I would have thought she’d insist on coming inside, what with my house being right here. She had probably already knocked and found out that the sealer was in there, concentrating on her work.

_ Actually, she probably didn’t make it past the blood ward.  _

We head off. It isn’t a very far walk; as a matter of fact, she’s only a few blocks away. I’ve been to her house before for more than a handful of group projects, so I’m familiar with the area. As a result, I’m not surprised to see that her house looks nearly exactly the same as mine. The format is mimicked across a very sizable part of the ninja community, after all.

When she lets me in with a playful grin, I’m able to see that her house is perhaps even more barren than mine, in terms of personal effects. Oh, there’s certainly  _ things _ — what appears to be an array of ninja tools and books and scrolls littering the area, as well as what appears to be a floating ball of Wind. But it lacks decoration. Color. This is a ninja’s home, and nothing more. Her personal effects tell me nothing except that the occupant of this house is a dedicated, if somewhat messy, ninja. 

“Well, welcome.” Sayaka says serenely. “Apologies for the mess.”

She sounds anything but apologetic. I don’t mind, though — the mess is comforting, and reminds me of home in a way, what with Setsuna’s supplies and pet projects scattered everywhere.

“Thank you.” I say dryly. 

“Well…I’m pretty sure it’s safe to sit on that couch.” Sayaka motions vaguely in the direction of said furniture, where a box of throwing knives rest. 

Gingerly, I make my way over, even pulsing my qi into the couch with an improvised form of qi echolocation to see if I can detect any haphazard knives. Eventually deeming it safe to sit on, I sit down. Carelessly, she takes a seat next to me, shoving the box to the side.

_ This is surprisingly fitting for her. I wonder what’ll happen when she brings a boy over.  _

_ Or a girl. She somehow strikes me as the type to not care about that kind of thing.  _

“Ah, wait. Do you want a drink?” She seems to remember common courtesy. 

“Nope.” I say, having begun converting my nature to Water moments after I’d sat down. “I can provide for myself.” 

“What do you mean? Did Setsuna seal you a ration pack or something?” Sayaka asks, confused.

“She has,” I admit, “But that’s not what I’m referring to.” 

“Oh?” Sayaka asks, leaning back and staring at me. “Go on, then. I’m curious.” 

“Well, I’m basically done.” I say. 

_ Twenty seconds. _

I channel Water to my mouth and abruptly condense it, converting it to fresh water, then swallow.

“…That is such a waste.” The Wind User across from me says dryly. 

“It was an exercise in qi control.” I retort. 

It’s a speed one, rather than a precision one. Materializing water is literally the most basic usage of the element. But the question of how fast I can change element, as well as how fast I can make it usable…?

Twenty seconds. About nineteen go to making the switch from Wind to Water, with the last second going to the materialization itself. 

And a second might seem like a long time, relatively speaking — hell, I could do that in the Academy — but it’s a controlled materialization, rather than a forced or instinctive one. And that means it’s much more efficient and much more precise. 

Sayaka’s taught me that being  _ efficient _ is a really useful skill — her higher levels of Wind Mastery in the interrogation exercise proved that much. 

“So…how’ve you been?” The young woman across from me asks. 

Unable to stop myself, I snort. 

“W-What?” She asks defensively. In lieu of answer, I just send her a blank stare.

“It’s a serious question!” 

“I’m fine.” I say, a small smile forming on my face. Sayaka has always been refreshingly honest about her intentions with me. It makes her easy to talk to. “How are you?”

She reaches up to her hair and carefully pulls the ribbon out, flashing it with a proud grin at me. 

It’s a fourth-star Wind Mastery ceremonial ribbon. You receive one when you’re officially promoted to the aforementioned level. At the fourth-star level and above, you must go in for an examination — these, however, are much shorter than the typical promotion exams, and are closer to a...skill demonstration, so to speak.

Most people don’t wear them around, though, for obvious reasons. I’m pretty sure Sayaka simply wanted to show it off to me.

“When’d you get it?” I ask curiously.

“Exactly a month and a half ago.” She says triumphantly. I do the math, and smirk at her.

“Looks like you aren’t quite on my level yet, then.”

“What.” 

“I picked up mine a day before that.”

It’s even true. A certain breakthrough on my Wind abilities easily clinched me the fourth-star ribbon. Namely, the little trick Mari stole from me in the examination.

To be specific, a bastardized version of flight. Although proper combat-capable flight is seventh-level Wind Mastery, I’m capable of stepping on the air, so to speak. By propelling myself through the air, I’m able to fight in a way very few people at my age can. 

“I hate you so much.” She glares, but there’s no heat in it.

“How’s your healing going?” I offer instead, changing the subject. 

It’s not something she’ll ever surpass me in, thanks to my regeneration. It gives me a level of familiarity with the body that no amount of experience can match. And, of course, Hikaru has been training me since the outset — there’s no way she can beat me in this.

“Fourth star, almost fifth star.” She says proudly. “By the time I finish my fourth-star examination, I’ll definitely be fifth, and then I’ll be able to work with Ms. Kozakura.” 

I feel a little bad for keeping the secret that I’ve long since started my apprenticeship, but there’s no point in creating unnecessary tension. “I’m fifth-star now.” I reply, deciding not to sugarcoat it. 

She pouts. “You’re always just a half-step ahead me, aren’t you?” Her frown is replaced by an easy smile, one that reassures me she isn’t taking the loss particularly hard. In fact, going with her character, these setbacks are just ways for her to motivate herself. 

She wants to be the very best. She wants to be at the top. For her sake, shouldn’t I force her to work for it as much as possible?

I smirk. “Naturally.” 

“…Although, I’ll admit that you  _ did _ have me beat in Wind Mastery in that exercise we did together, so good for you.”

“And I outperformed you in the Academy graduation exam.” She adds dryly.

“But I had better grades than you.”

“And I could kick your ass in close-combat every day of the week.” 

“Add qi to that and it’d be totally different.” 

“Wanna bet?”

Her proposal surprises me. In the Academy, she could never beat me under those rules, and even in our training exercise, the only reason she beat me in one is because I was restricted from bringing any real power to bear. 

Something’s changed, then, something that makes her more confident in her abilities. Or perhaps this is just another attempt to prove to herself that she can beat me? I’m not sure. 

“Sure. The stakes?” I ask.

“If I win, you take me out on a date.” She replies. I blink, surprised.

“A…date?”

“Yes.” She replies, an impish smirk on her face. “I’ll look for the most expensive restaurant.” 

“Jerk.” I chuckle. “Then, if I win, you’ll…owe me some kind of favor.” I can’t think of anything now, but something like a favor would definitely be useful.

She intentionally glances down my body. “What kind of favor are we talking here?” She asks teasingly.

I flush. “ _ Not _ that.” 

“I accept. Conditions?” 

“CQC and ECQC only.” I offer.

“Sure. Race you to Training Ground Five.” 

Training Ground Five is a large ground that’s split up into many parts, blocked off by stasis-sealed walls. It’s an optimal area for typical team training — indeed, I’ve been there quite often with my team. 

“You’re on.” I say, and she immediately leaps up from her seat and runs out of her house.

Grinning, I chase after her as she leaps onto the rooftops, kicking off with enough force to send her flying into the air.

I grin, cutting past her with a burst of Wind that pushes against her, slowing her down.

“Cheater!” She shouts as I rocket past her.

“ECQC!” I retort, which this technically is. 

She catches up to me with her own burst…which, if I’m not mistaken, is quite a bit more precise than mine is. That’s fine — what she possesses in seemingly near-perfect control, I possess in power.

That being said, I know she works herself to the bone for every ounce of that control. In the Academy, she had good control, but it wasn’t especially amazing. For her to show such a massive increase in control, there’s no doubt that she threw hours and hours each day into perfecting her ability to manipulate her qi. 

Although, to be honest, my abilities haven’t changed too dramatically over the last year and three months, but that’s about to change.

This whole time, from the very beginning of my roots as an Academy stident, I’ve been fiercely focusing on my fundamentals. Raw qi control. Materialization of water, rapid aspect shifting, power exercises, reinforcement, physical ability, and so on. This has led to relatively little change in my combat abilities, besides the things I work on as pet projects — my archery and swordsmanship, for example.

In other words, I’ve been setting the framework for explosive growth and development, following the advice of Hikaru. And it’s about to pay off tenfold. The weak but still useful flight abilities I’ve developed are only one such example.

The priority of a combat ninja is the ability to utilize rapid, powerful techniques. This is what makes Spellweavers so deadly, after all — their ability to launch high-level techniques in moments make them incredibly potent in combat. 

By focusing so hard on my control, I’ll be able to utilize my own techniques in moments with true efficiency, rather than rushed caricatures like I use when under stress.

Soon enough, we make it there and locate a vacant ‘room’. The building is constructed with reinforced concrete and metal, and backed up by potent stasis seals on the very inner layer. Qi lamps, similarly reinforced, provide all the lighting, and a solid layer of earth coats the floor.

We’ve chosen a smaller square room since we don’t need much space for this, but it’s still a good five hundred square meters or so in area, by my estimate. 

Without preamble, she makes her way to the opposite side of the room as I lock the door behind us. 

“Ready to lose?” She asks, smirking. 

I flash her a bloodthirsty smile. “We’ll see who loses. Ready.”

“Ready.” She replies, returning a one-fingered salute. 

“Go!” 

I had considered my options for fighting her on the run, but ultimately decided there wasn’t much I could commit to without getting a better grasp of her capabilities. I know she’s certainly improved by leaps and bounds, but by how much?

_ A lot _ , I realize, as her initial charge cracks the ground under her feet. About fifteen meters had separated us at the start, but she closes the distance in about a second, launching a blistering jab that nearly knocks my block off.

Nearly. As her fist flies towards my head, I deflect it with a movement of my arm and slip into her guard, a punch aimed at her stomach. 

In a single fluid motion, she pulls back and pivots, a scything kick aiming to crash into my side. I pull my own arm back and cross my arms, blocking the attack as I’m sent back half a dozen meters.

Ouch. That kick had the power of both Wind empowerment  _ and  _ what I assume was first-level reinforcement behind it. But my guard holds all the same, absorbing the force into my arms as I dig my feet into the ground. 

Sayaka tilts her head coyly in acknowledgement, a glimmer of respect rippling in her eyes. Despite that kick having the power to rip through a concrete wall, it’s still only about a two on the Mari scale. 

And I’m sitting comfortably at  _ third-level  _ reinforcement. This, coupled with my intense physical training, means that I can weather even hard hits like that with relative ease. 

“So you’ve been working on that reinforcement, then?” Sayaka asks rhetorically. I shrug. 

Most people don’t make it past second-level reinforcement, even good ninja. The return isn’t worth it. 

Most people aren’t me.

My aberration enhances my reinforcement and makes it easier to me — that’s just its nature, the same way Mari’s aberration supports intensity and speed. As a result, second-level reinforcement? Not a problem.

Third-level reinforcement?  _ Also _ not a problem.

And with the amount I’ve been working on my physical abilities? In this state, I’m comparable to, but not the equal of, Mari before she gets serious. 

Given that her ‘serious’ is close to seventh-star level, though, that isn’t a bad metric to approach at all, certainly not for a mere third-star ninja. A savage grin crosses my face as I dart forward, trading a vicious series of punches and kicks with her. 

This time, she’s the one who finds herself repelled, as the few punches I intentionally let through do absolutely nothing. A driving kick from me that would go  _ through _ a normal person is deflected off her guard, but there’s enough force involved to send her stumbling backwards.

“Hmph. Fine.” Her expression changes, growing a little less playful. “If your reinforcement is that good, then...” She changes her stance, her hands flattening out rather than clenching into fists. 

Knowing what’s coming next, I’m sure to dodge her next strike cleanly, a ripple of qi flying out from her cutting strike. 

There it is. The natural counter to reinforcement — cutting power. No matter the material of a wall, a strong enough sword can scratch it. 

I leap backwards as a violent kick rips through the air in a blur, hastened by her usage of Wind empowerment on top of her enhanced technique. 

_ …More like an axe, if you ask me. _

She chases me around the room, a series of blows that would cut right through metal coming in one after another. Such a fighting style is inherently lethal, but she trusts in my abilities to avoid getting hit. And I deliver, dodging cleanly and deflecting where I can’t get out of the way. 

Well, I can’t do this forever. Eventually she’ll catch me with her incredibly quick blows.

Tapping deep into my power reserves, I gather qi through my body before releasing it in one powerful punch, sending her flying back so hard she crashes into the opposite wall. 

_ Despite  _ the fact that she blocked it.

“Ugh…” It looks like she managed to reinforce herself, and reinforce herself  _ well _ , taking minimal damage despite the hard impact. Even with reinforcement, though, it would be impossible for her to completely ignore something like that. 

With how intensive her fighting style is, she’s burning through both her physical stamina and qi reserves rapidly. She’s probably going to reach her limit soon. 

“That’s a neat trick.” She acknowledges, preparing to lunge at me once more. I grin. 

“It isn’t anything more than a simple flexing of my aura. All you have to do is gather Wind qi and force it through your aura. In this case, though, I specifically targeted my hand so that it would count as ECQC, rather than the ninja arts.” 

She rears back, surprised. “You’re just…telling me that for free?” 

I shrug. “Yeah? What’s wrong?”

She frowns. “That’s important technique information, Yuki.” 

Eh…not really. It’s super basic. 

My indifference must show on my face, because she sighs ruefully. “You’re so strange. Well, I’ll make it up to you and split the bill when I win and we go on our date.” 

“As if.” I snort. 

Her trademark smirk appearing on her face once more, she launches herself at me, a kick whistling through the air. I dodge a few hits before throwing out a tentative aural shockwave again, and am unsurprised when she reacts by making her own aura fluid, letting the blow slide off of her. 

It’s an innovative defense — this way, her aura absorbs and deflects just about everything, and it doesn’t cost her much. It’ll still shave qi off any enhanced blow I bring to bear. And of course, if I try to go harder with it, it’ll definitely count as the ninja arts instead, and I’ll have broken the rules.

Of course, with a more fluid defense, if I simply hit her hard enough, it will falter. Her weakened qi defense, as little protection as it provides against physical blows, is now even more fragile.

She’s banking on her skill, in other words. Daring, but it fits well into her style — rather than being a straight brawler, as is my style, she favors a deflective, fluid style that prioritizes dodging over blocking, like Setsuna.

I continue weaving around sharp blows, waiting for a moment to strike. Even a trained civilian would not strike carelessly against a knife-wielding opponent, after all. So I wait patiently, biding my time as I dodge, ignoring feints, wearing her down…

Seven minutes. It takes seven full minutes of weaving around Sayaka in her best form before an opening shows up. I’ve had more than a few close calls as shown by the still-healing scratches and light cuts on my skin.

But my patience has paid off — Sayaka is exhausted, finally slowing down — and for real, this time. Four minutes in, she had pretended to grow tired, slowing down, but her acting hadn’t been quite perfect. A bruise on her cheek marks where my fist had brushed past, exploiting her ‘weak’ fighting. 

She hasn’t had the time to heal it herself, yet.

The reason why is simple enough. Despite her incredible progress, I spar regularly with Mari, a provisional seventh-star ninja. Compared to that, and the  _ motivation _ she gives me to improve, even a talented ninja like Sayaka simply can’t break past.

No…that isn’t it. Part of it, sure, but…

I finally detect my opening and slam my fist under her guard, sending her crashing to the ground. 

“…Damn…damn it…” 

The blunette gasps, completely spent. Her clothing is soaked in sweat, and her skin is even paler than usual. 

“Let’s call it.” I say gently. 

“Why…why can’t I beat you…?” Ignoring me, she forces herself to her feet. “Why…?” 

“It’s because you’re specializing as a caster, while my primary combat range is close-to-mid. The gap between us has closed.” I reply. 

She lowers her head, acknowledging my point.

“I…I know that, damn it.” Sayaka looks up, meeting my eyes. A conflicting storm of emotions glimmer within them. “I know. But it’s still…so damn frustrating…”

Knowing our fight is over, I walk over and place my hand on her shoulder. 

“Does it truly bother you so much that you lost?” I ask softly.

Her lips twist into a complicated expression. “I…well…” She huffs. “You remember, right? Why I still want to be a ninja?” 

“To be my rival.” I respond jokingly.

“Idiot.” She scolds, but I still manage to pull a grin from her with the memory. Part of the reason we’re still as close as we are, relatively speaking, is that favor she’s still repaying me…

_ “I suppose that’s true. Seriously, Yuki…Thank you. I’ll find a way to repay you for this.”  _

_ “Be my rival, then. I don’t know. I don’t really want anything.” _

Neither of us have ever said anything about it, this formalization of the bond between us in the library where we met Hikaru for the first time. And I doubt she really still feels obligated to remain my rival. No, she’s almost certainly still in this for the other benefits; namely, someone to motivate her. 

An exercise partner, so to speak. 

“I have to be the best. I have to win. Otherwise, if I lose…I’ll die. That’s how this ninja world works, isn’t it?”

I contemplate her words seriously. On the literal surface, it’s obviously not completely true — she just lost this fight, but she’s still alive and kicking.

But what if this had been in the field? Instead of a casual training fight, if it had been against an enemy…A pretty girl like Sayaka? A defiant one like her? Death would be the most merciful thing that could happen to her. In that kind of context, her words make rather more sense than they ought to. And I myself can’t find a ready counter to it. 

…Can’t I?

“Not always.” I say slowly, trying to pull my thoughts together. 

“What do you mean?” Her expression is…interested, but still carries more than a little despair. 

“Isn’t that what you have a team for? To support each other?” I remember Mari’s words of advice, Setsuna’s constant and comforting presence, Katsuo’s roundabout way of teaching. “To defend each other, to protect each other, to fight for each other…”

That’s right, my team…

“Mari’s the spear. Setsuna, the sword. And I?” I smile. “I’m the shield. Those two will fight, and I’ll be right by their side, fighting with them, protecting them.”

Perhaps once upon a time, I had been Setsuna’s sword, cutting down those who would try to harm her. Now, though, she’s perfectly capable of handling her own problems, and I’m content merely to be her protector, when she needs me.

“…What will you do if they die?” Sayaka asks, almost so softly as to not be heard.

“I won’t let them.” I say firmly. “Not while I draw breath.” 

“Determination only gets you so far.” 

“I know.” I smile a little ruefully. “That’s why I have talent, friendship, skill, hard work, and a little bit of luck, too.”

_ Well, and some other secret weapons, but… _

Sayaka grimaces. “If you…if you keep talking like that, I’ll have to disown you as my rival.”

I snort, and the heavy mood that’s settled between us is lifted. If she can make jokes like that, she’ll be okay. But her and I both…have some thinking to do. 

“Want to head back to my place?” Sayaka offers. “I…think we should continue this conversation…you know, not in the middle of the training ground.”

“Er…sure.” While it is a private room, it just feels uncomfortable, and we’re taking it up when we don’t need to be. There’s no point in us staying anymore. 

“Actually, wait. I’m pretty hungry, but I don’t have much at home. Do you mind if we stop somewhere to eat? I’ll pay.” 

“Ah, sure. You can choose where to go. I don’t have any preferences. And we can split.”

She grins. “Sure. I’m fine with that. We’ll talk about the  _ favor _ I owe you too…” She steps closer and plants a hand on my chest. “And maybe a way to pay you for treating me to lunch…” 

I roll my eyes and flick her on the forehead, causing her to yelp and jump backwards. “Right. I guess paying for your meal is the least I can do after kicking you around so much today.” 

We spend the walk to the restaurant bickering, smiles on both our faces. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *inserts shameless plug for Team Dragon here*


	36. (3.2.2) Rivalry, Part 2

#  **3.2.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Rivalry, Part 2**

The restaurant she picks is a relatively quiet and peaceful ramen stand, about a ten minute walk from her house.

“I didn’t take you for the type to come to such a quiet place.” I admit. 

“It’s really comforting here.” She says, a genuine smile on her face. The waitress seems to recognize her by sight, waving as she brings over water. I just order whatever Sayaka does, and she leaves to deliver the order.

“I guess you come here often, then?” 

“Yes. Ever since I was little, my mom and dad would take me to this place. Our family’s come here for decades.” 

That’s right, Sayaka still has her family. That would make her the only one of the three girls I regularly hang out with to actually have any close, living relatives. Setsuna and I both have zero family, and Mari only has distant cousins.

“I see…”

Sayaka takes a deep sip of water. “How’s Setsuna and Mari?”

I grimace. “Setsuna and I have to become fourth-star ninja in three months or we’re off the team.” 

Sayaka winces. “You’re expected to be fourth-star ninja so soon after graduation? That would only have been…what, three months?”

“Yeah…” 

“That’s so fast…I’m only third-star myself…” 

That being said, it’s pretty obvious that Sayaka will be at the fourth-star level herself soon. Fourth-star healing and Wind Mastery, and easily third-star close combat abilities…

I shrug. “I’m not concerned about my own results. The problem is…”

“Setsuna, right?” As expected, the blunette nails it immediately.

“Yeah. She’s a utility ninja. Her combat skills are…well, they’re not bad, but…”

“She can’t externally manipulate qi without her seal system, right?”

I make a face. “She can’t manipulate qi at _all_ without her seal system. And even with it, she can only do it slowly and in small amounts, not enough to do anything more than charging and printing seals, as well as reinforcement.”

Useful abilities, to be sure, but for fighting on a fourth-star level? I’m a lot less certain about her capabilities in that regard. So is she, which is why she immediately left to begin training. 

“I see. So you’re worried about her?”

“Yes.” 

A frown mars the blunette’s face. “She needs an equalizer.”

I nod. Some kind of exponential growth, even if temporary. Something to even the massive gap between her and whomever her opponent is. It’ll most likely be some kind of seal, or seals. There aren’t many instant shortcuts — at least, not many without equal or worse shortcomings.

My thoughts travel to the container sealed in my chest. It’s…it’s an option. I could use it to give her a substantial power-up, one drop at a time. It wouldn’t fix her underlying qi problems, but it would fairly significantly increase her physical stats, solving one of her major weaknesses.

Setsuna’s major problem is that her body is physically underdeveloped. Since she didn’t grow up as a proper User, her body lacks the natural growth that ninja like Sayaka and I have. As a result, she’s physically behind in terms of raw strength and speed. In theory, even a relatively trained civilian could overpower her, something that wouldn’t be within the realms of possibility for ‘real’ ninja. 

As a result, she’s slower and weaker on average. Her hard work has caught her up — indeed, a lot more than I would have thought — but she’s still notably behind. All her physical empowerment seal system does is close the gap, rather than put her ahead like it should. 

A little bit of Etheria, spaced over three months, would likely fill in that gap. I’d have to consult with Hikaru, but…

And therein lies the problem. Although Hikaru trusted me with her secret, I have to remember that I am blood-bound to her. I vowed to act in her best interest, and revealing her secret — even if just to one person — runs counter to that. 

No, there isn’t much I can do for her but cheer her on, and hope that she can pull through.

“Why does she have to be a fourth-star so fast?” Sayaka asks, breaking me out of my thoughts. 

“Because Mari is a provisional seventh-star ninja.” 

The blunette’s jaw drops. 

“A seventh — but it’s only been _three months_ —“ 

“She’s two years older than us, and a Storm Aberrant.” 

“Oh. No wonder she was so strong.” Sayaka mumbles numbly.

That’s right…Mari kicked Sayaka’s ass in the graduation exam. Mine, too, although at the time I hadn’t known about her status, either. Even so, it was fairly humiliating to get absolutely crushed by her in the overall combat practicals, which had _included_ the use of qi.

She hadn’t used any. 

“So because there’s…what, a five star difference between the top and lowest person on your team, you guys are expected to catch up?”

“Six star difference, and yes, that’s basically it.” 

“That sucks.” The Wind Ninja says. I snort. 

“Yes. It does.” I shrug. “Nothing we can do about it. How about you? How has your team been doing?” 

“They’ve been going well enough.” Sayaka says. “They really started taking things more seriously after that exercise. Now they are both second-star ninja.”

Impressive. I wouldn’t have considered either of them more than first-star based on their performances in the interrogation exercise, but if they’ve been working hard for three months? I’m sure they’ve both earned it.

“Wait, Setsuna hasn’t been promoted yet?” She asks. I shake my head silently.

“I’m positive that it’s because she’s constantly in a support role. With me as the leader, and Mari as the firepower…it’s hard to recognize her achievements. I know she definitely has the combat ability of at least a second star, and the mind of at least a third star. Easily.” 

She frowns, considering my words. “Or maybe there’s a different reason…” 

I blink. “Such as?” 

“How often does she speak up during missions?” 

I close my eyes, thinking. That’s right…she usually doesn’t. It’s hard to count the first one as a result of the circumstances…but major insights usually come from Mari or I. It isn’t that she isn’t on her game — she’s usually not surprised by our plans or ideas — but she doesn’t speak up unless both Mari and I have missed it…which rarely happens.

“I see your point.” 

Even if I know she’s ready for a promotion, if our handler doesn’t know what I do, then she obviously wouldn’t be promoted.

“It probably doesn’t matter now, since she’s taking the examination.”

She isn’t wrong. The difference between first and third star is effectively the amount of trust your handler puts in you. Every other rank must be earned, whether through exceptional merit or through examination. 

“It could be a problem for her later, though.” I reply quietly. “If she’s ever on a team that consists of people less competent than Mari and I.” 

Sayaka nods. “Yeah.” 

I sigh. “I guess I’ll…bring it up with her later.”

Our food arrives and we spend a few minutes digging in. The ramen is excellent, with a simple but delicious broth and a good variety of toppings. 

It doesn’t seem like Sayaka is particularly interested in talking during her meal, so I elect to wait until we’ve both finished our food. It doesn’t take long, and soon we’re relaxing in our chairs with full stomachs and slightly raised spirits. 

“That was nice. Thank you for bringing me here.” I say, reaching down to my hip. 

“No problem.” She says, smiling cheerfully.

I smirk and channel qi to a specific seal, the money falling into my hand moments later. I place it in front of my own empty bowl.

“…Wait, what?” Sayaka doesn’t have a line of sight on me, but she felt the ripple in the air of me channeling qi. “Did you…wait, did you seal money onto yourself?”

“Yes.” 

“Setsuna?”

“Yes.”

Sayaka shakes her head. “You guys are crazy to treat seals so casually.” 

“I have absolute faith in her work.” I reply simply and honestly. 

The waitress comes over to us, bows, and takes our empty dishes, as well as the payment for the meal. Waving to Sayaka as we leave, she disappears behind the back once again.

Sayaka closes her eyes and stretches, apparently relieved to get off the stool. “I needed that.”

“Your ramen fix?” I ask, snorting.

She cracks a piercingly blue eye open. “Don’t fuck with the ramen.” 

Her — joke? — makes me crack a smile all the same, though. I lose it when I consider the topic I’ve been avoiding. 

She seems to read my mood readily enough. “My place again?”

“Please.”

She nods, and we retreat back home.

…

“There’s something else you wanted to talk to me about, isn’t there?” She asks. “Something you can only talk to me about?”

I blink, surprised. “How did you know?”

We’re sitting on her living room couch once more. She’s even done me the favor of removing the box of knives from the couch…so instead of worrying if I’ll sit on it, I will have to instead worry if I’ll step _into_ it. 

“Because you would be talking to Mari or Setsuna about it if you didn’t, duh.” 

“Well…you’re on the mark.” I say, sighing. “Well, I did try talking to Mari about it, but…” 

“Didn’t go well?” 

“Not at all.”

“Well…” She sits back and turns to look at me. “Tell me about it, then.” 

So I do. I explain the first mission we had. I talk about Setsuna getting violated, my boiling hatred towards our client, the fight, the kiss, talking about my feelings about Setsuna with Mari, her recommendation that I ought to date my best friend, the rest of the trip, Setsuna flipping the tables on our client.

I hesitate, then tell her about the interrogation, tell her exactly what I did. My promotion, Katsuo’s parting words, the uneasy feeling I’ve been having recently, my discussion and fight with Mari.

Through it all she doesn’t say a word, but her facial expressions make it clear that she’s paying attention. She winces when I tell her about our client, looks angry when I tell her what she did to Setsuna, and is completely blank when I tell her of what I did.

It’s intimidating, but I tell her anyways, and feel a little better for having done so.

And the first words out of her mouth?

“…Wow.” 

I turn to face her, giving her a deadpan expression. Her follow-up words, though, are more significant. 

“I don’t blame you.” 

“What?”

Her expression goes dark. “If someone had done something like that to…my family, I would have torn them apart, too.” 

_Her family?_

“…You say you could have come up with a different path, but…what could you have done?” Sayaka asks thoughtfully.

I purse my lips. “I haven’t even tried thinking of an alternative. The thought only came to me today, and…well, it’s too late now.”

“I can’t even think of anything you could have done.” She admits. “I guess you could have tried appealing to the higher-ups…and I mean, _the_ higher-ups, but…” 

“They probably wouldn’t have cared.” I reply.

“…At best, yes.” 

_At worst, you could have been punished for displeasing the client._

Those are the words that go unsaid, but from her grim look, she understands it as well as I.

“What a terrible situation.” Sayaka mutters. I shoot her a humorless look. “I really can’t come up with anything else.” 

“Was I wrong to take it as far as I did?” I ask.

“No.” She says firmly.

“Was it selfish?”

“A bit.”

“Is it wrong that I don’t regret it?”

She makes a face. “…It’s easy to say yes, but…I’ve never had to deal with something like that, you know? I can’t _imagine_ what you were feeling when you heard Setsuna say what she would have done to her, if she hadn’t been stopped. I felt nauseated just hearing about it. To have that _happen_ to someone close to me…?” 

“I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong, Yuki. Ironically? I think it just makes you human.” 

I close my eyes and consider her words, and that of Mari’s, as well. Two opposite opinions.

_It was wrong._

No, it wasn’t.

_You did it for you._

It wasn’t necessarily selfish. It was the only option you could take.

_You could have come up with something else._

Do it, then. Figure it out. An option that would have led to peace in that moment. An option with no consequences.

_‘Before everything…before being a ninja, before being an…aberrant...I am, first of all, a human…’_

_‘I don’t think it’s wrong, Yuki. I think it just makes you human.’_

Committing an inhuman act…was a human thing to do?

Which is right? Which is wrong? 

…I don’t know. I don’t know if the action I’ve taken is correct. Talking to Mari provided an idealistic opinion. Talking to Sayaka showed me a realistic one. 

The realities of the situation say that I could not have chosen any other option, because there were no satisfactory ones.

Do I truly believe that?

Mari. Storm Aberrant. Passionate, intense, energetic, reckless, and prideful. Fact. 

A common truth of our world; one’s primary affinity affects their personality. Fact. In other words, one’s qi nature influences their nature. This is an undeniable truth.

I am an Ice Aberrant. Fact.

I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, but is that truly…right? Am I the one speaking, or is it my aberration?

Ice aberrants are cold and lack emotion. Fact.

Can I even trust my own conclusions on this? 

…Inconclusive.

“You look very conflicted.” Sayaka murmurs. My eyes fly open to see that she’s moved much closer, only a short distance separating our faces.

“Have confidence in yourself. In that mind of yours.” 

I can’t possibly tell her about my aberration. That needs to remain a secret. It isn’t my mind that’s the problem…it’s my feelings. Or lack of thereof. 

I don’t know. This isn’t something I can figure out now, or today. I’ll need to meditate on this.

“I still owe you a favor, don’t I?” The beautiful blunette says softly.

“I suppose so.” I ask, confused.

“Consider this free of charge.” 

“Consider wha—“ 

She cuts my question off by resting her hands on my shoulders and slowly pulling me into a hug. It’s gentle enough that I could easily resist if I wanted to, but…

…

…

…

“That’s enough.” I say at last, pulling free of her. 

Her favor…the chance to forget thinking for a little bit, forget all of my problems, and just feel, no strings attached.

And I accepted. I shouldn’t have, but I did. There was no real good reason to do it. It was selfish, even if she was the one offering, but…

It was human. 

And I think that’s what I need right now. That, more than anything, a reminder that I _am_ human. 

Sayaka couldn’t possibly have known any of that, but I won’t question her intentions. I needed something like this. 

“Thank you.” 

She smiles. “Of course.” Her expression softens, becomes more genuine. “Do come visit more often, would you? It’s good to have someone like you that I can really trust.”

“Of course.” I say simply. “I will.” 

As I turn to leave, she stops me— 

“…You really have forgiven me, haven’t you…?”

“Huh?”

“With what I did to you in that exercise.”

I shake my head ruefully.

“I was never mad at you in the first place.”

…

On the walk back home, I consider the events of today and laugh.

_Looks like Sayaka got her date after all._

_Clever._

_…_

“I’m home, Setsu…na…” I trail off as I stare at the mess my house has become. For a moment, I wonder if I’ve accidentally stepped into Sayaka’s house once more.

Paper and ink supplies lay scattered about everywhere. At least a dozen unfinished seals are scattered about, twice the number in ink brushes, and there’s a roaring fire going on top of the kitchen table. 

It promptly disappears as Setsuna slams her palms down and a burst of qi ripples out, the flames instantly vanishing into a seal.

“You better have put a stasis seal on the table.” I frown.

She nods, leaning back exhaustedly. It seems like she’s been hard at work.

“Need any help?” 

She shakes her head. “I’m…I’ll be okay, Yuki. You have to train too, don’t you?”

I shrug. “Yes, but…”

The sealer visibly winces. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” 

Well, I’d anticipated this. Despite her introversion, she has a very strong desire to prove herself.

 _She’d probably be a Fire User, if she had the capability for it._

“Alright.” I say softly. “I’ll go head down to train.” 

Without waiting for a response, I head down into the basement room and work on my physical abilities, pushing myself to the absolute limit. More than a few times, I take it too far and injure myself, dislocate an ankle or break a bone, but my regeneration fixes it in moments. 

Six hours. Six hours of grueling physical training. 

A normal day, in other words. 

The strain is such that I’ve even managed to break a sweat, a rarity considering how my body automatically regulates my temperature. That’s how I know I’ve properly pushed myself.

_Good._

It’s close to eight at night when I decide to stop, my body aching and my qi nearly drained. I head back up, intent on meditating and qi control exercises…

My stomach rumbles.

Perhaps a meal, too. And a shower. 

“Ah…Yuki.” Setsuna meets me in the hallway, looking utterly exhausted. 

Despite how tired I am, I manage to smile anyways. “Hey, you. Hungry?” 

She nods. “Yes, please.” 

I laugh. “What do you want to eat?” 

“…Fish?” 

“Sure. I think I had some in the freezer.” 

I head out to the kitchen, and pause.

“Surprise.” She mumbles from behind me. 

I turn around and hug her without warning, eliciting a surprised squeak from the girl. 

“Thank you, Setsuna.” 

“I’m happy to help…Yuki…” 

Behind us, two plates and a freshly cooked salmon rest on the countertop.

…

It’s a little overcooked, but it’s the best meal I’ve ever had, all the same.

  
  



	37. (3.2.3) Rivalry, Closing

#  **3.2.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Rivalry, Closing (Sayaka’s POV)**

“What an idiot.” I mumble to myself. 

Yuki. My rival, my friend, my fellow apprentice. He’s a good friend. A good person in general, but not naive. He’s smart, and ruthless when he needs to be. But caring, too, when he wishes. Rare traits to find in the same person...but he’s off limits. His heart belongs to Setsuna. It’s something I admire and hate about him at the same time. If it wasn’t for that obstacle, I would have already made a move to make him mine. 

Yuki, I think, would be someone _really_ interesting to date. 

It was an eye-opener, my place at the top being taken from me so suddenly. Those boys I heard going around, fighting people? They were pathetic. I stomped them into the ground, but didn’t bother to really do anything past that. They left me alone, and I, in turn, ignored them. After that, I thought I was ready.

Then he came, and he changed everything. I wasn’t at the top anymore, and to my surprise...I found myself okay with that. It’s boring being better than everyone else. No, what Yuki represented, what he gave to me...

He gave me challenge.

He gave me a reason.

That...For that, I owe him everything. Without him, I would still be mediocre. Meaningless. Content in my own false superiority. 

The feeling of being in someone’s way, pushed meaninglessly to the side for some other goal...many people would find hatred, revenge, even despair.

But me? 

I found thrill.

Someone my age, someone just like me, infuriatingly better in every single way. I refused to accept it, and drove myself to new heights. And I’d closed the gap, or so I’d thought, taking second place overall in the Academy graduation...

The interrogation exercise showed me just how much I still had to grow. Stats? Placements? All of it…meaningless. I could have been a ninth-star ninja and I would have still lost to him.

Why? Simple. He had the drive to win.

Oh, so did I. So did I. I did things that still linger on my mind to this day. 

But he wanted it more. And so he got it.

That kind of personality...is simply impossible to ignore. I thought I had liked him before, but losing that badly...that ignited something else deep within me.

So I threw myself into training and missions again, got stronger, better, faster, more intelligent, more skilled. Three months without seeing him, focusing purely on my own skills.

We fought again, and I lost _again_.

But I haven’t given up. I’ll never, ever give up. No, I’ll keep trying. And I won’t isolate myself any longer from him, either. It’s far more fun being around him. 

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not some kind of obsessive masochist or anything like that. I’m just a girl that hates to lose.


	38. (3.3.1) Dissonance, Part 1

#  **3.3.1 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Dissonance, Part 1**

I’m worried about Setsuna.

It’s been a week since she surprised me with dinner, and it’s clear that something is off about her. Perhaps the most obvious thing is that I wake up alone every day now. 

That in itself is a red flag. Setsuna loves sleeping in, and more importantly, loves sleeping with me. But yet, she’s decided not to every day this week. 

I would wonder if it had something to do with me if I hadn’t found her relentlessly training each and every single time. 

“How long did you spend training today?” I’d asked, a few nights ago. 

“…Eighteen hours?” She had replied uncertainly in return. She’d certainly looked the part, clothes soaked with sweat. Frankly, she’d smelled. I forced her to clean herself up before running medical scans on her, and what I had found had alarmed me.

_ Intense _ muscle strain. Some of them had outright torn, and from the looks of it, she had been ignoring it…through sheer, stupid willpower. 

Luckily for her, I knew how to heal that up. After finding myself at a loss for how to treat Mari’s strain, I had went to Hikaru, who’d taught me how to handle the delicate work required. 

Since then, Setsuna has come to me whenever she needed healing, which happens at a frankly alarming rate.

_ I think I’ve got a good idea of her schedule now, though. _

She wakes up at four am and does physical training to wake herself up for several hours. After, she studies seals until I wake up and cook for her, then she eats, showers, and preps for training. 

At eight, we meet up with Mari and Katsuo outside of the house, where we train. Katsuo dedicates a large portion of the time to working with Setsuna on both practical training and seal-work, leaving Mari and I to work by ourselves for the most part. 

At twelve, Mari and I run a minor in-village mission together, usually some kind of simple chore or busywork. It’s pretty boring, but it becomes fun when we race to complete it. Setsuna, on the other hand, keeps training with Katsuo, usually taking a small break to eat a lunch that I’ve prepared for her ahead of time.

By four, we’ve completed our mission and resumed training, this time mostly as a group. Katsuo will pull out some kind of exercise or situation that we’ll work on analyzing and solving. Sometimes, we’ll work with other teams, but this is a rarity. Apparently, Mari’s too strong to make it worthwhile for them. 

After four, Katsuo works specifically with Mari regarding her seventh-star status, leaving Setsuna and I to do what we wish. For her, that just means more training — usually seal-work, though, as she’s typically totally exhausted by this point. I’ll usually heal her at this point, removing excess strain where I can and infusing her with energy as she does so, then prepare dinner for her and clean house. 

After, I’ll either train with either Setsuna, Mari, or Sayaka, or just hang out with one of the latter. Sometimes, I’ll head down to the library, and other times, I’ll head down to Hikaru and continue my medical training. 

I’ll return home and prepare to sleep at around midnight. Setsuna accompanies me to bed, having finished her night routine. 

I’m no stranger to intense training. The schedule I’ve set up, after all, allows for up to about thirteen hours of training. In theory. In practice, I usually take breaks and spend some time hanging out or talking to my friends. Thirteen hours is a lot of time, after all. Even if I could easily handle more, what with my healing and my Veil to dodge mental exhaustion, I’m well aware that I  _ shouldn’t. _

Setsuna, on the other hand, does none of these things. And her schedule offers her close to  _ twenty _ hours of training, which she regularly uses. Interaction between us has heavily fallen off.

She’s going to burn herself out at this point. I understand why she’s working so hard, but she’s going to kill herself doing it. Already, I can tell that the work is starting to take a toll on her, making her far more irritable than usual. 

Mari’s noticed the trend as well, but doesn’t know what to do about it. Similarly, Sayaka doesn’t see an issue, the blunette training for fourteen hours or so daily herself. Katsuo is mostly indifferent, making me think that he expects  _ me _ to solve the problem somehow, and Hikaru tells me frankly that Setsuna needs the time. 

In other words, I have to be the one to fix this mess. By myself.

Simply telling her completely failed. She dismissed my concerns and told me that she needed to keep going. I’ve seen this attitude from her before, back when we’d first met. That swordsmanship training, where, despite a substantial gap in skill, strength, and speed, she fought me again and again just to gain experience. 

She’s that kind of person, someone who will just throw themselves at a problem again and again and again. She’s too weak? Well, with  _ twenty hours of training every day _ , perhaps she won’t be. The concept wouldn’t be crazy if it wasn’t for the fact that she seems determined to do this for  _ three months straight. _

The problem is…without support from others, and with her refusing to take my advice, I don’t know what else there is I can do. I know she wants to get better, but I’m positive that this isn’t the way. 

But without some kind of alternative to offer her…I’m positive words will fail, every time. Anything I say has to be backed up with action, with a solution. And I don’t have anything that I can give to her. 

Until I find some kind of option to let her relieve herself, she’s going to keep tearing herself apart. Literally, in some cases. 

But…what? What can I do?

…

Two weeks after Mari’s examination, I elect to head to Hikaru’s house rather than go home after training, waving at Setsuna. She doesn’t respond, lost in thought.

Well, she can figure out what to do herself for food. It’ll force her to take a break, at the very least.

With that in mind, I wait for Hikaru to let me in, then commit to a long training session. This one, though, is a little different than the normal — and takes place in the underground chamber, which has been hallowed out to be of a similar size to the training ground Sayaka and I fought in. 

“Ready?” She asks me. I nod. 

“Alright. Go.”

I lunge at her, calling my Wind energy as I use it to close the gap between us. Before I get too close, I abruptly reverse my momentum and release my power, a scything burst of energy aiming to take her head off.

She raises her hand up and meets the blade head on, a pulse of qi disrupting the technique and causing it to dissipate harmlessly in a shower of sparks.

Having expected something like that, although perhaps not anticipating her outright dispelling the technique, I’ve instantly shifted my affinity to Ice before lunging at her, icy blade in hand.

It crashes against her upraised arm, dealing zero visible damage against what is clearly an extreme level of reinforcement. With a sweep of her limb, she shoves me away and follows up with a lightning-fast kick that would have shattered every bone in my abdomen if I hadn’t hastily flipped my grip and intercepted it with the flat of my blade.

Even so, the force is so much that it sends me sliding back, my blade cracking. It’s a testament to how potent my Ice aberration has become that it hasn’t shattered outright…but still, I would have expected it to weather the attack better. Hikaru is really outrageously strong, I suppose. 

Rather than press the attack, I let the momentum bleed off as I dig my heels into the ground and skid to a stop. 

“Good.” She says. “Looks like you’ve been improving.” 

I wince. “Master, you broke my hand with that last kick.” Even now, I’m healing the fracture that she caused through ridiculous brute force. 

“Ah, stop being a baby.” 

When Hikaru fights, she doesn’t mess around. I suspect it’s a coping mechanism to let what is normally a very compassionate and kind-hearted girl fight, but it’s always intimidating being on the opposite end of it, especially seeing it first-hand. She’s so powerful now with the infusion of Etheria she injected herself with that she breaks my bones on accident, despite not even connecting with me. Ridiculous. If she truly meant me harm, she could end my life in a split second, and I’d be totally incapable of stopping her, or even slowing her down.

“It looks like everything’s normal, though, so try it out, what we discussed earlier.” 

Ah, that. I dissipate my ice blade and unseal a small syringe from my wrist. With a bit of hesitation, I inject it into myself.

“…Ugh.” Pain ripples through my system, even more than when Hikaru fractured my wrist. With practiced ease, I ignore it. It’s easier now than the last twenty times I’ve done it, and I don’t even need to tap into the Veil.

“Well?”

I reform my Ice blade. As expected, the previously crystal-blue Ice is now marred with streaks of purple. 

“Give it to me.”

I toss the sword to her, and she carelessly catches it with one hand. Briefly, her eyes glimmer blue.

“Looks good. Now…” Without hesitation, she flips the blade in her hand and stabs herself in the side with it.

“Hikaru!” I shout, alarmed.

“What?” She asks, completely unconcerned.

_ Oh. Right. Regeneration.  _

After a few seconds, she yanks the blade out and concentrates.

“It works. Cutting with the poisoned ice transmitted the poison. It’s not particularly concentrated, though, so we’ll have to find something that you can build an immunity to, even at high dosages.” 

Without any effort on her part, the gaping wound that she created seals itself in a flurry of pink energy. 

“I…see.” I say slowly. Hikaru blinks.

“Break the blade.”

Without hesitation, I release my will, letting the blade melt in her hand. Deftly, an orb of qi appears around her hand, catching the now-liquid poison as my ice disappears from it.

“Syringe.” 

I toss it to her as she requests, and she sucks it back in, using her qi to force the liquid into place. Then she throws it back to me, and I catch it and seal it back into place.

“Great, next we’re going to try…”

…

“…Ow.” 

Perhaps a more extreme reaction should have followed her chopping off my arm with a Wind blade, but I’m so deep in the Veil that it only registers as a mild sting.

She picks up my now dismembered arm and walks away, apparently keeping it for further testing.

A few minutes later, my arm has fully regrown itself. 

“Same arm as usual?” She asks.

“Yes, but the seals are gone.” 

“…Shit. Alright, I’ll go unseal your stuff from your other arm.”

It takes a while to unseal and reseal everything back into place.

...

“Here, read this book while you heal, and prepare an oral report. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes or so.”

I catch the clearly handwritten tome she tosses at me, then pause.

_ Introduction to Etheria, _ by Hikaru Kozakura.

“It obviously won’t see the light of day.” She says, amused. “It’s for you, silly.”

“Ah. Thanks, Hikaru...where are you going?”

“I forgot something at the hospital. Be back soon.”

“Okay. I’d walk you out, but...” I wave at my legs, both of which have been cleanly severed from my body and are busy in the process of regrowing.

…

Taking a break from experimenting with how much of my body I can regenerate (as it turns out, well over half my body — I refused to let her cut my head off) we instead go over more healing practice. Proper healing, not regeneration.

We did learn something very useful about my aberration, though. My regeneration is entirely internal and can’t ever be manifested the way Hikaru’s is, as it’s tied directly into the qi nature of Ice. No transferring regeneration for me.

Disappointing, but good to know all the same. 

Soon enough, it’s close to midnight, the point where I would normally return to Setsuna. 

“Hold on, we’re not done yet.” Hikaru interjects. 

“Did you have something in mind?” I ask, more than a little tired. Mari and I didn’t take a mission today and just trained instead, so I’ve been at it for nearly sixteen hours today. I’m exhausted, both in qi and body. 

“Yes. A ritual of sorts. Two, actually.”

The first, as it turns out, is extremely simple. She just infuses a mixture of Etheria and her blood into me. With her aberration, the two combine and become a powerful regenerative force, and gain  _ permanence _ when it interacts with my own regenerative affinity. 

Effectively, my regeneration is a good bit stronger than it used to be. It’s still a far cry from Hikaru’s, but it’s more efficient and useful now, I think.

Since it’s her blood, the ‘ritual’ also lets her track me, something that could be useful.

The second is more complicated, and involves me sacrificing close to a third of my Etheria in order to ‘enhance my Potentia’. She does all the work, manipulating my own Etheria in order to force the effect.

Frankly, it’s more than a little terrifying.

Afterwards, she replaces the Etheria I had with a bit of her own, a little at a time in order to let it be assimilated. Unlike the ‘natural’ energy she gave me, which has too weak of an impression to have any real ‘personality’, her Etheria contains a sizable portion of her personality due to the spiritual element of it. 

So, in theory, if you input enough of your Etheria into someone else, you could disrupt or damage their personality. Scary thought, that. 

The process itself is incredibly painful at first — Hikaru wasn’t joking when she said it would tear apart your nerves — but diving deeply into my Veil is able to numb the majority of the pain, to where debilitating, soul-crushing agony is replaced by mild discomfort. 

By the time everything’s said and done, I’d estimate that my regeneration abilities have doubled in strength, and I’m about a third stronger than I used to be. Not bad at all, for…

“Wait, how the fuck did that take three hours?” I yelp, shocked. 

“I put you in a trance for the second ritual.” Hikaru admits honestly. “It made it way easier to manipulate your energies.” 

“Well…thanks, Hikaru. All of that really helped.” 

She shrugs, rubbing at her eyes. “No problem. It’s easy to do this kind of thing for you, relatively speaking, because the major component — Etheria — is something we can both freely use. Saves a lot of time and resources.”

That’s right…both of the rituals I went through could have been done without Hikaru, but they would have been quite different. For example, the second one — I gained power, and sacrificed Etheria. 

It would have been a substantial loss had I not been able to regenerate my energy via Hikaru. There’s a reason people don’t carelessly perform these kinds of rituals, after all. The loss is usually higher than the value of the ritual.

With Hikaru’s skill, on the other hand, she can bypass most of the material losses, dissect the ritual to see what it really does, and reconstruct it from the ground up to suit our needs. It’s pretty incredible, but it only works because she’s there, and because I have a regeneration aspect.

“I’ll head home now, then.” 

“Yes. See you soon, Yuki.” She says, stepping forward to gently hug me. I awkwardly return the embrace. 

“Thanks, Hikaru.” For once, I call her by her real name instead of the title I use to mess with her. She’s done me a real service. 

I still have mixed feelings about accepting free power-ups like this, but since it took her a ton of work to derive what to do from the real rituals, I can’t begrudge her it. It’s different from her just dumping a bucket of Etheria onto me. 

“Ah, wait. One thing, Yuki.” 

“Huh?” I ask, turning around. “What is it?”

“Don’t tell anyone you came here tonight. I don’t want people to connect the dots if they realize you’ve suddenly grown a good deal stronger.”

“Sure. I haven’t told anyone I was coming here, anyways.”

“Alright, thanks.”

By the time I get back home, it’s a bit after three…easily the latest I’ve been out in quite some time, and well past the time Setsuna usually sleeps herself. I feel a little bad for taking so long. 

_ Hopefully she cooked something. She wouldn’t skip a meal for— _

She totally would. Damn.

A little concerned, I let myself in— 

“Y-Yuki…?!” A voice calls out. Her voice. 

“Setsuna? You’re awake?” I ask, surprised. 

“I…yes, I am. Where were you? It’s three in the morning…” She appears in the hallway, looking completely exhausted, but nevertheless makes her way down to me. 

She sounds genuinely concerned. But I can’t tell her, because Hikaru told me not to. The blood vow wouldn’t let me, even if I tried. 

I can’t come up with a decent lie, though, so I merely evade the question. “Just out and about…shouldn’t you be sleeping, anyways? You have training to do, after all.”

“…You smell of a woman’s perfume.” She mutters, leaning in to sniff me.

Damn. Recently, Hikaru had begun experimenting with different scents. I don’t really get why it matters what she smells like, but…either way, I can’t confess to it being Hikaru, either. It’d give her away, and I told her I wouldn’t say anything about going to her house tonight.

“I’ll shower, then.” I reply instead, aggressively evading the question.

“I…okay.” She looks like she wants to say something more, but cuts herself off instead. I’m just relieved that she’s stopped chasing the subject. I don’t know what else I could possibly say to her to get her off the trail, so having her stop of her own volition is very convenient. 

It isn’t until after I shower, where she patiently waits for me to finish before curling in next to me and falling asleep.

Nor is it after I wake up, where I wake up next to her for the first time in a week. 

No, I don’t notice until halfway through training, when Mari nails me with a glancing blow across the face that nevertheless knocks me to the ground. It’s completely unrelated, and totally inappropriate to be thinking about in the middle of a combat exercise, but…

I don’t know why she stayed in bed so late, but the expression on her face, combined with her words…she was  _ jealous _ . And that jealousy had forced her to take a break from training.

The thought sends a spike of a strange emotion that I later identify as  _ pleasure.  _ How bizarre. To experiment, I do the same thing the next night, to similar results. She’s better at hiding it this time, but her reaction is still notable.

And now…I find that a different option has opened up to me to stop her excessive training, where there had been no option before. 

_ Am I willing to manipulate her emotions like this…? _

  
  



	39. (3.3.2) Dissonance, Part 2

#  **3.3.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Dissonance, Part 2**

“You’ve gotten stronger.” Mari says appreciatively as we trade blows back and forth. “You might even force me to pull out my Storm Cloak.” 

I smile. The second ritual certainly significantly improved my physical power, but came with several crippling drawbacks.

Firstly, even simple movements come with the risk of harming oneself, if they are not controlled. Secondly, it is more tiring to move around. Thirdly, qi techniques, if improperly controlled, can burn out the nerves, rendering one incapable of utilizing qi permanently.

All of these drawbacks would turn away someone from utilizing the ritual. It, like all rituals, gives and takes in equal amounts.

Through my highly honed control and innate regeneration, I am able to ignore all of these drawbacks. Utilizing Ice demands an immense amount of control that I’ve been honing for my entire life — overloading a technique improperly is laughably out of the question, and even if I did, my regeneration would be able to easily heal me. Exhaustion? I’ve long since learned to ignore that kind of thing with my Veil — and now, even that is supplemented by my healing abilities. The only thing that holds me back is my qi capacity, which is considerable and further backed up by my sheer efficiency. 

In other words, minus a relatively small reduction in stamina, this ritual was effectively purely beneficial for me, whereas most others would have been crippled as a ninja. But finding shortcuts like these are exactly what being a ninja is about.

If it wasn’t for the ritual — and _fourth-level_ reinforcement, thanks to it — then I wouldn’t be able to do…this!

I catch Mari’s next jab — a jab, but it would have cracked my bones had I not been prepared — and lunge forward, slamming a knee into her stomach. 

Close-combat expert or not, she skids back, winded badly. I’m pretty sure she managed to reinforce herself before I tagged her, or it would have broken something. Damn.

She wipes a bit of blood from her mouth and looks at me once more in a new light.

“Alright. You have my full attention.” Her right iris goes blue. 

_Oh dear._

The following five minutes decisively proves why Mari is being promoted to seventh-star ninja. Even with my newfound strength…it isn’t enough to beat her raw experience, skill, power, and speed. Unsurprisingly so, but…

Still, I’m proud that I’ve managed to land a hit on her. Even though she certainly wasn’t at her best, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t _trying_. It’s a good sign of how far I’ve come, physically speaking. 

“Good fight.” Mari says cheerfully. “You’ve definitely gotten lots better.” 

I glare at her from my position on the ground — namely, paralyzed from the waist down. If I wanted to keep fighting, I could easily push it out with my qi — that was a skill I prioritized learning in the days after I’d first met Mari — but escalating the fight is pointless. The gap between us is as far as the sun and moon. It's pointless to keep trying, so instead I acknowledge my defeat before forcing myself to stand, wiping out the paralysis.

“Thanks as always.” I say dryly, but in good humor nonetheless. 

She laughs, clapping her hands together. Despite our argument from the other day, not a trace of bitterness rests on her countenance. There’s no awkward atmosphere in the air, either — whenever something threatens to settle in, she blows it away with her perpetually cheery attitude. 

“Good work, you two.” Katsuo says. Behind him, Setsuna rests on the ground, panting exhaustedly from her latest battlefield sealing practice. Surrounding her is a glowing red square barrier, proof of her success. 

“There’s something I do want you to try, though. Mari, in particular.”

“Huh? What is it?” 

“This.” A metal sword materializes above us and thuds into the ground heavily in front of her, startling us both.

“A…sword fight?” I ask. 

“Correct.” 

Mari picks up the blade and weighs it in her hand. From the delighted look on her face, she seems to find it satisfactory. 

“Well, alright.” I say. “Mari, have you ever fought with a sword before?” 

She grins. “Not in a long time. But I think I’ll manage just fine.”

That’s right. Despite my experience and skill advantage with the sword, she is still a vastly superior physical combatant. So even if it’s her first time fighting with the weapon, she’s still an extremely dangerous threat.

“Rules?” I ask.

“Qi reinforcement only.” 

I bite my lip in thought. Such a rule favors me dramatically, as Mari’s reinforcement only goes to the first level. I, on the other hand, between my natural skill, aberration, and recent ritual, can take it to fourth. 

Of course, she’s still faster and stronger than me despite that, but the gap is much lower than it would be otherwise.

“Understood. Ready, Mari?” I ask.

She takes a strange stance, the sword held behind her over her shoulder, as if she was placing it into an invisible sheath. 

“Ready when you are.” 

I nod at Katsuo, letting my qi condense inside of me. It takes moments to achieve third-level reinforcement, and merely a few seconds after that to hit fourth. 

“Three…two…one…”

“Go!”

Mari throws her sword.

Mari…throws her sword?

_What the fuck!?_

Even as my mind paralyzes itself, my body kicks into action, aiming to deflect the oncoming sword down into the ground…

And Mari _charges_ , grabbing the spinning sword out of the air before it would have connected and slashes down in a spinning strike with so much force that I slide backwards, nearly thrown off my balance.

_The momentum of that…!_

She keeps slashing at me, forcing me to constantly backpedal as I defend with both hands, unable to even consider swinging back. 

The reason? Simple. She swings with no skill or talent. In fact, if she had been wielding a warhammer instead of a sword, it is likely she would use both the exact same way. 

But she doesn’t _need_ to do anything else. Her strikes are powered with the strength of a mace and the speed of a dagger. It’s all I can do to avoid getting disarmed, and blocking directly is out of the question — every counter is designed to deflect, not block. Retreating backwards is the only way I can survive her swings, yet it allows her to continue with her insane momentum. Eventually, I’ll hit a wall — twenty meters — and lose. 

_Four seconds before impact!_

I dive to the side under her next strike, and smoothly roll to my feet in the same rapid motion. Even with how fast I am, I barely manage to block in time, her sword almost cutting off my head.

With a roar of exertion, she shoves the swing, sending me sliding along the ground. If it hadn’t been for a hasty qi-slide, I would have been sent tumbling head over heels — which, given her followup strike, would have been an instant loss.

We begin exchanging strikes again, but this time, the situation has changed. Her strikes are still as powerful and quick as ever, but I’ve regained my footing. She’s still pushing me back, but, to her consternation, I’m able to keep up more than I could before. 

Why? It’s because, now that I’m not in imminent danger of being backed into a wall, and now that she’s lost the initial momentum her trick move gained, I’m slowly but surely circling around, forcing her to follow me as opposed to her constantly pushing me. 

It makes a lot of difference. Limited as she is by her lesser sword abilities and the restrictions of the fight, she can’t counter what I’m doing how she normally would — namely, cutting the corner. Such a move no longer works when the skill gap between us is so low, in comparison to how it was before. 

A deft parry on my part nearly slices open her throat. Startled, she hops back — and instantly, I change the movement of the fight, rushing _her_ down instead with a ferocious series of slashes.

This time, she’s caught on her back foot, focusing entirely on defense as I rain attacks down on her in a pattern I’m well familiar with. With the speed of my attacks, she isn’t able to do more than defend, although unlike me, she’s capable of blocking just fine, too.

And, soon enough, her back hits the wall, and— 

She parries my descending blow with so much force that I’m left off-balance, but she’s not in any position to attack with her sword from there, so—

Mari drops her sword. 

Her fist, now free, slams into my chest with so much force that I’m sent flying away. Only honed experience allows me to maintain a grip on my sword — this saves me when her other hand catches her still-falling sword before she lunges at me, aiming to skewer me on the end of her blade.

I rapidly sidestep away. She turns her lunge into a slash, but lacks the force to really knock me off of my feet, and I’m able to recover my balance. 

I can’t keep this up. The simple truth is that from the beginning of this fight, I’ve been pushing myself as far as I can, squeezing every last bit of power that I can get out. And it just isn’t enough. Despite everything, Mari is still physically several magnitudes above me. These advantages make up for the experience and skill I have on her. 

But I’m tired. The fight prior to this was already draining, but this constant maximum effort on top of it — I can’t keep it up. My body can’t handle it. My qi, between the massive amount of work I’ve done last night and what I’ve used today, is running low. Empowering my body to this extent is one of the most inefficient uses possible, and it drains my energy too fast. However, I don’t have a choice but to use it against someone like Mari. 

Of some consolation is the fact that Mari appears to be exhausted herself. That being said, she still has plenty of qi in the tank and has the ability to use it to force herself to move, the same way I can. There’s no doubt that she has more stamina than I do right now. 

I need to end this, and soon. 

Well, there’s always one move you can pull against a sword-user of lower level…and my reinforcement is still going strong. I can probably make this work.

Probably.

And if not, Katsuo can patch me up as I hold back my regeneration. 

Well, then…here goes nothing. 

I purposely leave an opening in my strikes, and she exploits it — swinging her sword hard, she disarms me, sending my weapon flying backwards. She slashes again, aiming to defeat me without literally ripping me in two—

_Clap._

Mari stares in disbelief at her suspended sword. Or, more specifically, the blade that I’ve captured between two palms.

Giving her no time to react, I tighten my grip and, instead of pulling towards me, which she’ll expect, I push towards her instead. Surprised by the unexpected shove, she starts falling back — _then_ I yank the sword away from her and send it twisting out of her grasp, all in one lightning-fast movement. 

Smoothly, I flip backwards, grab the fallen blade, then leap back and snatch my own sword from the ground as well.

“And we’re done.” I say calmly, holding the two swords loosely. She glances warily at them.

“Well…I mean, you’ve disarmed me, but I’m pretty sure I can keep fighting here.” Mari says. And she’s completely serious. Despite me wielding both blades, she’s totally confident that she still outmatches me in close-combat, even with the restrictions. Worse, I’m not even sure she’s wrong. 

However…

“It isn’t much of a sword fight if you don’t have a sword.” I say, glancing in our handler’s direction. He snorts.

“You lose, Mari.”

“Ehhhh?!” She pouts, but gives it up. “Good fight, captain.” 

I smile. “Good fight.” 

Mari’s steel sword abruptly fades away into qi as I relax, sheathing my sword. 

“Alright, what you two could have done differently…First of all, Yuki, if you ever pull a disarm maneuver like that in my sight again…”

_…_

“So, what do you think they’re doing?” Mari asks conversationally as we run along the rooftops. Today’s mission is a four hour shift — patrolling the civilian district.

Not fun, but a necessary mission nonetheless. We’re really only here as a supplement to the natural police force, but this is an excellent mission for intermediate-level ninja. As long as firearms and civilian-level knife users aren’t a threat to you, they’re virtually risk free, and they provide safe combat experience as well as general observation, perception, interaction…the list goes on and on.

In other words, running missions like this…as simple and boring as they are, they are an essential part to ninja life.

“Who?” I ask. 

“The people we’re substituting for.” 

Normally patrol missions are on schedule. However, we’re filling in for an absence — non-essential, though. The pay isn’t especially great, but it’s still good training nonetheless. Ninja are required to work a certain amount of hours into it before graduating.

I’m technically not ranked high enough to take this mission, but Mari, being well above the fourth-star requirement necessary, is sponsoring me for it.

“I don’t know.” 

There’s technically no way to fail these missions, but you’re expected not to slack off, either. Incidentally, some of the missions to train stealth involve spying on ninja running these missions without getting caught. 

It’s up to the discretion of the ninja running the mission to decide how to handle situations, though. Sometimes, an active role is taken, where any criminals are knocked out and brought in for questioning, and in others, they’ll work to solve the problem from behind the shadows. These missions, therefore, also teach responsibility and leadership. 

“I bet they’re having sex.” Mari says, completely casually.

I ignore her with practiced ease. 

“Hey, look.” I say, lazily pointing a finger a few blocks away as my eyes notice a commotion. “Thief.” My finger hums with wind energy. “Target practice?” 

“Learn to be personable.” She lectures me, before she leaps towards the area. Snorting, I follow her.

By the time I’ve gotten there, Mari has already knocked out the civilian and brought the merchandise back to the relieved shop owner in question. 

“T-Thank you so much, young lady!” The older lady says, bowing. She seems to be about the age of maternity. Mari grins, her hand on her hip. 

“No problem. We’re happy to help you!” 

The woman’s smile turns a little more…fragile?

“Your help is truly appreciated. Please, if there’s anything I can do to assist you, let me know!”

“Do you know where the nearest police station is?” Mari asks, as I ensure the criminal in question — a male perhaps six years older than I am, roundabouts — stays unconscious with a jolt of qi to the brain.

“Y-Yes, ma’am! It’s that way, down the street!” The woman says.

“Thank you so much!” Mari replies brightly. “We’ll be off, now!”

“Ah, I didn’t get your name!” The civilian says, suddenly perking up. “I’m sorry for the disrespect!” 

“It’s totally okay. My name is Mari, and my friend here is Yuki. Could I have your name, too?” 

The woman’s eyes go wide. 

“Ah…Hana Suzuki.” 

Suzuki…? That name…strikes a chord within me.

_Oh!_

That’s right…back from the Academy, Kaede Suzuki. She dropped out of the Academy after failing to make the cut for the seventh-year class, instead of taking the option to retake. 

So her mother is a civilian shopkeeper, then? 

Well…if this is really her mother. There could be, and likely are, more than a few women who go by the last name Suzuki, after all.

I decide not to inquire, though. The information isn’t particularly useful, just interesting. 

“Nice to meet you!” Mari waves. “We’ll take care of this one, then.” 

“Okay. Thank you so much for your help!” 

She bows to her, then, unexpectedly, to me. 

“Thank you for your assistance as well, young man.” 

“Sure.” I say blankly. Mari motions at me to leave. 

“Goodbye!” The Storm User says brightly. 

“Goodbye, and thank you!” 

We hop onto the rooftops once more, prisoner in tow. 

“See? Wasn’t that a fun diversion?” Mari asks. 

I roll my eyes. “I didn’t do anything.” 

She grins. “Well…then do something. You’ll take care of the next incident on your own, and I’ll just watch.” 

We drop our prisoner off at the station Miss Suzuki directed us to, the police taking custody of him, before heading back up once more. 

It isn’t too long before my eyes pick up something else, and I visibly wince.

Mari smirks. “You’ve got this one, captain.”

“I hate you.” I snark, but still make my way to the…disturbance.

Specifically…what seems to be an overly-amorous couple…disturbing the peace in a back alley. Nude. 

Before deciding to ruin their fun, I quietly approach their location until I get into hearing range, ensuring that what’s going on isn’t, for example, rape.

_“Ah! Fuck me harder!”_

…Got it. Not rape, then.

“Excuse me.” I say flatly, as I hop to the ground behind them. “Would you mind moving this inside?” 

“Eh? Dude, do you know how close we are? Thirty seconds, tops!” 

I’m about to offer a retort when Mari steps in next to me.

“As long as you actually head inside after you’re done, that will be acceptable.” She orders. “And don’t let me catch you out again, okay? No second rounds.” 

“Thanks! You’re the best!” 

I send a disbelieving look at Mari, who has an impish look on her face. 

Our…duty…done, we head back to the ‘ninja pathway’ once more. 

“Mari, what the hell?” I hiss, the second we’re out of range. 

“They aren’t actually causing any real disturbance.” She says. “Why harass them?”

“Public indecency is most certainly a disturbance!” I protest. 

Mari shrugs. “No one actually knew they were there except for us. It’s not like they were in the middle of a park.” 

Ah, I see. So she thinks the spirit of the law should be followed, rather than the letter. Well…she is my superior in this case. To be honest, I’m not really that eager to get between the two. 

“I understand.” I say reluctantly. 

“Why, did you want to join in?” She asks, a grin on her face. 

I roll my eyes and otherwise don’t bother to comment on her terrible joke. 

Twenty minutes later, we come across something else.

“Here, since I stole your thunder on the last case, you can handle this on your own.” Mari offers. “I’ll just be there…for backup.” 

“Great.” I say flatly.

As it turns out, the problem in question is simply two kids trying to get their kitten out of a tree in one of the civilian parks. They look like siblings…so the cat is probably a pet, then.

‘Really?’ I mouth to Mari. The older of the two, a young girl, looks to be about the age of ten, with medium-length black hair and green eyes. At that age, I was five years into the Academy. I could run a three minute kilometer.

And I could most certainly have climbed five meters to reach a pet.

The Storm User shrugs, then motions for me to retrieve the cat.

Shaking my head, I call upon my Wind and unceremoniously sweep it off the branch with a brush of air. Yowling, the animal lands on all fours, as expected, and then flees.

Out of habit, I materialize a qi needle and prepare to throw it through one of the animal’s limbs before remembering that I’m dealing with civilians. So, instead of incapacitating the cat with a pointy object through its leg, I chase it down and corner it with little difficulty. 

Picking it up proves to be a bit of a chore, as it goes into a frenzy — however, my reinforced skin proves to deflect the animal’s nails with little difficulty, and pinching it by the back of its neck serves to immobilize it effectively. 

The kitten seems to calm down substantially upon being reunited with its owners. To be safe, I put the animal down in front of them to check its mood, but it turns out to be okay with the two kids. The younger one, a brown-haired, brown-eyed boy that seems to be about five, carefully and methodically picks it up. 

“Thank you, sir!” The two siblings say.

_Learn to be personable._

I paste a smile on my face. “You’re welcome, you two. Be sure to stay out of trouble.”

“We will!” 

As I’m about to turn away, though, the younger of the two calls out with shining eyes:

“Hey, do you wanna play with us?” 

The sister seems shocked, but doesn’t know how to react. It’s an innocent offer, but still…we can’t. We have our own jobs to do, after all. 

“Sorry, but we really have to—“

“Just for a little bit, okay?” Mari cuts me off. “Then you two should head on home after.” 

_Um. What?_

“Yay!” The boy shouts gleefully, totally unaware of what’s going on. 

“So what are we going to play?” My brunette teammate asks gently, either oblivious to or completely ignoring my glare. 

“Um…I have a ball!” 

So he does.

“We can play…kickball!” He says. 

_I have no idea what that is. A kid’s game, I guess?_

“Sure!” Mari replies brightly. “I’ll play with you.” She waves at the boy’s sister, who still appears to be stunned. “Would you like to play, as well?” 

She hesitates, then shakes her head. “N-No thanks, miss. But thank you for the offer.” 

Mari takes the rejection in stride. “Okay. Do you think you could take care of the cat while we play, then? I wouldn’t want it to run off and get stuck in another tree.”

“Of c-course!” The brother gives the cat to her, and she holds it with an ease that speaks of months of practice. “Be good, Kitaro!” 

“I will, Mirai!” 

Kitaro takes the ball and punts it towards Mari, who gently returns it. 

…Apparently, that’s all that kickball entails. Bemused, I sit on the ground, electing to wait until they get bored of the game. The young girl next to me decides to follow suit, putting the cat in her lap. 

“Thank you again, sir.” She says quietly. 

“No problem.” I reply. 

“But…you don’t want to be here, do you?” She asks, before clapping her hands over her mouth. “P-Please forget I said that!” 

I crack a genuine smile. “You _are_ a perceptive one, aren’t you?” 

“Per…percep…tive?” 

_Right. She’s civilian ten. Give or take, anyways._

“You can see things that aren’t in the open.”

“Is…is that a good thing?”

“It can be.” I say simply. “In your case, I think it is.” 

“O-Oh. That’s…that’s good.” Mirai murmurs, seeming appeased. 

“Just make sure you know when and when not to say certain things.” I advise.

“When…when shouldn’t I say something?” 

“Hm…you’ll want to avoid making people mad, for the most part.”

She bobs her head. “I see. Are…are you mad?” 

I blink, surprised. “Me? No. What makes you think that?” 

“You…you don’t want to be here, right?”

I lean over and pat her head, eliciting a surprised squeak from her. “It’s not as bad as you think it is.” 

A brief silence follows as we watch our companions continue kicking the ball back and forth. Mirai continues to pet the kitten, the animal apparently content to sit in her lap and laze about.

“If you don’t mind me asking, sir...what is your name?” 

I smile. “If I tell you, will you call me by it, instead of ‘sir’?” 

At long last, I can see where Hikaru is coming from. The formality just makes me feel uncomfortable.

Naturally, this won’t stop from calling her ‘Master.’ It’s too funny not to. 

“Ah...okay.” The girl says shyly. To be honest, she reminds me of Setsuna, back when we had first met.

“My name is Yuki.” 

“Ah...nice to meet you, Yuki. I’m...Mirai.” 

I resist the urge to tell her that I already know, and simply reply: “Nice to meet you too.”

We sit in a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Eventually her brother gets tired and the two wander over back to us.

“Mirai, I’m tireddd…” He says, drawing out the last syllable. “Let’s go home!” 

“Yes, yes.” She acquiesces with surprising patience for someone so young. Cradling her cat, she stands up.

“Thank you again, Yuki! And, um...”

“Mari.” The girl in question provides, a warm smile on her face. Mirai flushes pink.

“Thank you as well, Mari!”

“Thank you, Auntie Mari!” Kitaro pipes up as well. This time, it’s the brunette’s turn to blush.

“Yep! No problem at all, guys!” She says cheerfully. “Get home safe, you two!”

“We will!” They shout over their shoulder, already leaving to their home. Mari and I wave them off. 

After they’re out of earshot, Mari turns to smile at me. 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“I didn’t mind.” I reply noncommittally in turn. 

“How did she know your name, then?” She asks slyly. “Because I didn’t tell her.” 

I give her a dirty look. “Let’s go back to patrolling.” 

Despite my spirited attempts, I’m unable to get her to stop smirking at me for the rest of the day.

  
  



	40. (3.3.3) Dissonance, Part 3

#  **3.3.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Dissonance, Part 3**

Nothing else of interest happens throughout the mission, and at four, we head back and report on what happened. After that, we join up with our team again.

“You three are dismissed for today.” Katsuo says, before unceremoniously wandering off the training ground to who knows where.

“I’m going to go home and nap.” Mari says, stretching tiredly. “See you two later.”

“Bye.” Setsuna and I reply, waving. She disappears in a blue blur, leaving us alone on the training ground. 

_ I should leave to Hikaru’s house now. If I’m going to be continuing to try and manipulate her into taking some breaks, then… _

But I miss her, damn it. I miss Setsuna so much that it hurts. I haven’t had a decent conversation with her in over a week, outside of mealtimes. During training, we’re  _ rarely _ together because she’s always working with Katsuo, or I’m working with Mari. Hell, I’ve talked more with basically everyone else, and we live in the same house!

So even if it’s just watching her train and doing absolutely nothing else, I’m fine with that.

I turn to my companion. “Are you going home, too?”

“Ah…” She trails off. “Are you?”

I blink, giving her a strange look as she fidgets nervously. She’s acting…well,  _ really _ strange. 

“I was planning to, yes.” 

“Are you staying home for the whole day?”

“Yes.” 

“That’s…good.” She smiles a shy, genuine smile that lights up her entire face. She’s so blatantly pleased that it honestly makes me feel uncomfortable, because…

…Because I’m the one who’s made her so unhappy in the first place.

_ I want to see her smile more. _

“Let’s go home, then.” I offer.

“Yes.” She replies softly, her mood appearing much improved over the constant exhaustion that has been plaguing her for the last week…

_ I don’t think I can keep doing this to her.  _

…

“Pass the pepper.” 

She lobs it at my head, and I deftly catch it with my free hand. In an interesting turn of events, Setsuna is helping me cook tonight’s dinner. Back when we had first met, I had taught her the basics of cooking, and she’d picked it up fairly easily. All the same, it was fairly clear that she didn’t particularly enjoy cooking, so eventually it became a responsibility that I did while she would handle the cleanup. 

Having her in the kitchen is therefore something I haven’t seen in some time, but she’s a welcome presence all the same. 

“Soup’s done!” She calls out as I season the stir-fry. 

“Seal it!” 

“On it!” 

Setsuna’s research and tireless experimentation has finally come to fruition with her first original invention. Well, ‘original’ is sort of a misnomer given that what she does is a combination of two different existing seals: stasis and standard.

Much is still unknown about the sealing dimension, but we do know that sealed objects do not change their spatial position and do not preserve their momentum. Time passes normally for them, as well. Through experimentation, we also know that sealing a living thing kills it unless they are very quickly removed from the seal. The exact timing heavily varies, however, but the damage dealt to them if they stay for even longer than a few seconds is too much for me to fix.

_ Granted, that may also be a result of my poor understanding of avian anatomy.  _

But, either way, the sealing dimension is clearly dangerous to living beings. 

Setsuna had the idea of trying to store food in the sealing dimension. Specifically, unwrapped food — while it’s been tried and tested that a wrapped standard ration bar can survive sealing and remain perfectly edible, I wasn’t so sure about other types of food, and didn’t want to use myself to experiment eating it. 

To get around the problem of sending unwrapped food through the second dimension, she decided to experiment with stasis seals, which would freeze it in time and therefore be unaffected by the sealing. However, you can’t seal something that has a stasis seal on it for obvious reasons — an object in stasis can not be manipulated. 

She  _ basically _ created a chain reaction of seals that seals an object in stasis, then reverses the stasis prior to unsealing it by using an intentional flaw in the stasis seal. Conceptually, it isn’t a hard idea, but what kind of mind is needed to create a chain reaction off of a purposeful failure? 

In a moment of whimsy, she named the invention ‘food seal’. Despite the terrible name, it can be applied to all objects, so long as they don’t contain qi and aren’t bigger than about the size of a large pot. Of course, few items that meet the requirement require a stasis seal in the first place.

There are some limitations to this kind of thing. She can’t print the seal yet, so it has to be written out — that alone covers a fairly decent space, far larger than her relatively tiny explosive and velocity seals, which she can scratch onto the butt of a knife. She’s also apparently still working on optimizing the thing as well. Right now, the stasis seal element is forced to be weak to make it easier to break, so the stasis seal will only last for about a month. 

But as it turns out, the few microseconds that the food is exposed to the second dimension isn’t enough to diminish it at all. It comes out just as good as it went in. 

“This is done too.” I call out over the sound of sizzling and hissing. “How’s the fish?”

“Almost!” Setsuna pulls her head out of the oven and makes her way over to me to seal the stir-fry. “And the chicken is getting there, too!” 

In celebration of her invention, I’ve decided to cook a feast. We’re cooking far more than is necessary for two people, but by using the seals, this isn’t a problem. Food can be stored for at least a month with her seals, after all. 

We finish cooking the rest of the food, sealing it all away with the pots that Setsuna had marked in advance. 

“Think Mari might be interested in some?” I ask. 

She grins. It’s a running joke between the three of us; Mari, despite being a ninja and therefore blessed with uncanny precision and the ability to follow directions, is incapable of cooking. That isn’t to say that she’s a terrible cook, per se…but being an average chef in a population of above-average ones is basically being a poor one. 

It’s deliciously ironic when you consider that, of the three of us, Mari treasures food the most.

And that I, the most indifferent to it, am the best chef.

“Yes. Should we bring some over to her?” She asks. 

“I was thinking we could have a team dinner. It’s been a while since we’ve eaten together.” I say, reminiscing. Mari had been throwing herself extra hard into training for the week prior to her examination — not for the physical parts, which she was very confident about, but for the academic parts.

Although, based on her decent intelligence rating, I’d say she handled it just fine. Still, it had been funny to watch her frantically cram for that section.

And, of course, after her examination, Setsuna had thrown herself into her work, so we hadn’t had any chance to celebrate properly.

Perhaps it’s this fact that Setsuna’s thinking about, as she seems more than a bit guilty when she nods.

“That…sounds nice.” 

So it’s settled. Setsuna places all the scrolls we’ve created into a backpack, and we head next door. Since it’s been at least three hours, I expect Mari to have finished her nap, and am not disappointed — she opens the door to our knock after half a minute, looking tired but alert. 

“Hey, you two. What’s with the smell?” 

Unsurprisingly, after having spent three hours in the kitchen, the two of us smell like cooked food. 

“We made dinner. Do you want some?” Setsuna asks. Apparently it’s the right offer, as Mari’s eyes light up excitedly.

“Wait, you guys cooked? For me?! Ahaha…I’m so happy…At long last, my instant noodle diet has come to an end…” The brunette looks genuinely moved, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

“Don’t you make enough money to sustain a better lifestyle than that?” I ask, confused. 

She scratches her head awkwardly. “W-Well…I’ve recently…er, invested in some things. So I can’t…spend as frivolously as I would like…”

_ “She wasted all her money. _ ” That’s the thought that Setsuna and I share with a simple glance.

“Anyways, that’s not important. Do you guys want to come inside, or am I heading over?” 

“Is your kitchen table bigger than ours?” Setsuna asks. Mari has been over to our house often enough, but I don’t believe the Setsuna has visited her’s. 

I’m about to say “no, not particularly” when Mari interrupts, a grin on her face. 

“You could say that. Please, come inside.”

We file in after her, and it’s immediately obvious that a few things have changed since the ten days or so since I’ve last visited.

Namely…the massive table consuming most of the space in her living room. It’s a giant oak rectangle fixture, easily five meters in length and half that in width. All of the furniture that had previously been there has been shoved into the wall or moved out of sight. Moreover, it obviously doesn’t really fit — especially with the blossoming flowers, which I idly note have changed. Did she throw out the last ones? Where does she even get these?

“…Compensating for something?” I ask once I get over my slight shock.

She laughs. After all, Mari is nearly as flat-chested as Setsuna is. 

Relatively speaking, anyways. 

“Anyways, please, come inside and sit down. There’s…room for everyone.” The Storm User says, mirth in her voice. Rolling my eyes, we sit down as Setsuna begins unpacking the food. Mari’s eyes grow increasingly wider as we unseal more and more — by the tenth pot, she’s outright staring at Setsuna with a worshipful look in her eyes.

“Please marry me.” She begs, getting down on her knees. 

Setsuna flushes lightly. “I didn’t even really cook the food.” 

“But I can’t carry it all around without you.” 

We all manage a smile as we begin eating. This atmosphere…I had missed this a little. It isn’t especially loud, but there’s a general feeling of warmth, in a way different to when Setsuna and I are alone. It’s…nice. 

“Amazing as always…” Mari murmurs, digging in ravenously. “How much would I have to pay you to have you cook for me regularly?” 

“You’d pay for this?” I ask, a little surprised. The food is good, I suppose, but it isn’t as if I invest any particular time into honing the craft. 

Without a word, Mari slaps enough money on the table to feed a family for a week.

“I thought you were broke now?” Setsuna says, stunned. 

“If it’s for good food, I’ll gladly work a dozen missions a day to pay for it.” She says without a trace of levity on her face.

_ But you wouldn’t do that to get off an instant noodle diet!? _

“Well, if you want it that badly, I’ll bring you some food once in a while. It won’t be particularly hard to add another serving, so…”

“Yes!” She crows gleefully. “Thank you so much!” 

Next to me, the sealer cracks a small smile.

The rest of the meal is filled with bright conversation and smiles. I don’t actually take her money, but decide to bring her over food anyways.

…

_ This isn’t good. _

We’re alone once more in the comfort of our own living room, about an hour or so after we finished eating with Mari. Setsuna had gone to read a book on seals, and I’d meditated for a bit.

To my alarm, though, I’d found that my Ice Nature had felt…a little weaker than usual. I haven’t trained with it nearly as much as I had my Wind affinity, and part of the reason I’d treated it so relatively lightly is because that Ice, even at the beginner level, is a potent aberration. The passive effects of my Nature, regeneration and reinforcement, adapt with my own qi maturation. Those are the most useful parts, so I’ve never needed to do too much with that. 

The active abilities are also useful, but I have long since mastered basic materialization and usage. Having hit a crossroads there, and given that I’ll rarely use it due to it still being illegal as all hell, I haven’t pushed it much past this.

So although the relative power of my Nature hasn’t improved much, it shouldn’t have changed, either.

So why does it feel  _ weaker _ than usual?

This necessitates a visit to Hikaru. It isn’t extremely urgent, but it’s still serious. Further meditation reveals that my Wind affinity and qi have only grown stronger, so…

An internal problem of some kind, then, huh…? 

Yes, Hikaru’s help will definitely be necessary. For now, though, I can put the thought to the side. There’s an unusual opportunity here, the chance to actually spend time with Setsuna during a very rare downtime, and I’d be an idiot to waste it. 

“So, uh…” I begin, before trailing off as I realize I’m not sure what to say. Setsuna gives me a strange look from her position on the couch next to me. 

I don’t really want to talk about training. It might encourage her to start doing it again, and I’d lose my chance. For the same reason, I want to avoid talking about seals. 

But…if not for those, then what? The topic of food was pretty exhausted during the course of our dinner, so that’s out. The weather? 

_ Ha. _

Our hobbies…

Setsuna draws. At least, I think she does; it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen her indulging in anything like that. Mostly she just…trains, reads, and…

It occurs to me that Setsuna really doesn’t do much in her life outside of ninja things. She doesn’t really hang out with anyone the way I’ll occasionally do, nor does she do anything for fun — although I train my archery as a combat tool, I do also actually use it as a hobby once in a while. I frequently spend time with Mari, Sayaka, and, occasionally, Hikaru. And many of those instances are for  _ fun _ , too. 

Okay, some of those. That sort-of date with Sayaka was the first time I’ve ever done anything ‘for fun’ with her, and most of my time with Mari has been training or missions, and all of my time with Hikaru has been about learning or researching, but…the point is that I’m willing.

Setsuna has no social life at all without me, pretty much. She makes no effort to see anyone outside of me for socializing. That isn’t to say she avoids social contact, necessarily, but she doesn’t seem especially motivated to try. 

That’s probably just how she is. Setsuna…well, I don’t really understand her. If she’s so afraid of being abandoned, why doesn’t she try to make connections with others? Although she has bonded with Mari, it isn’t what I’d really call real friendship. Setsuna holds her at a bit of a distance, more than she distanced herself from me even at the very beginning of our acquaintanceship. 

It isn’t obvious at all, but I can still see the gap that the sealer leaves between her and…well, everyone else. I’d wonder if she was afraid of commitment, but…well, to be frank, she seems  _ very _ committed to me. That isn’t it, then. 

Or perhaps, similarly to her introversion, I’m just an exception to the rule, and she really is afraid of commitment? 

How am I supposed to know?

“Um…” Setsuna says awkwardly, and I belatedly realize that I’ve let myself drift off again and forgotten that I was supposed to be saying something. 

Thankfully, though, she picks up my slack:

“Thinking hard about something?” 

I wince. She’s picked up on my own quirks just as well as I have hers. 

“It’s been a while since we’ve had some free time, hasn’t it?” I divert smoothly. It isn’t really an avoidance of the subject, though — on some level, I  _ was _ thinking about that, after all. 

Then I silently curse myself. I’d wanted to avoid talking about anything that might encourage her to go back to training, and this subject naturally flows right into— 

“It has. I’m glad that we have some time now.” The sealer says brightly. Something about the scene catches my interest, and it takes me a moment to realize:

Setsuna is looking directly at me. 

In the last week or so, the only time I had been able to get any real conversation out of her was during her reading periods, and she’d always been multitasking while conversing. 

Now, although the book remains open on her lap, her face isn’t buried in it anymore. In fact, I have what appears to be her undivided attention.

And I’m not sure what to do with it.

At a loss, I meet her gaze head on. Stone-grey eyes peer back at me, soft eyelashes fluttering as she blinks. I’m only just able to stop a flush from forming on my cheeks. 

Her features are incredibly delicate, I realize, yet marked with the trials of being a ninja. They’re slighter than what most receive, especially considering her lack of natural reinforcement and resilience due to her condition, but the signs are still clear. A thin scratch mars her right cheek. From experience, I know a dozen such marks cross her back, stomach, and limbs, marks that hadn’t all been there back when I’d met her.

Training accidents, a mishandled tool…It’s easy enough to handle those, but qi-based attacks has a way of interfering with healing and tend, more often than not, to leave scars. 

And qi accidents are unavoidable in our line of work. 

Still, Setsuna has remained remarkably untouched for the most part. Despite this, though, I know that they still bother her a little, especially compared to Mari and I, who lack any visible scars at all. It’s a surprisingly vain thing for her to be concerned about, but it nonetheless reassures me that she hasn’t totally lapsed into the mindset of being a ‘tool’. The thought had been a legitimate concern for a while.

“Yuki…?” Setsuna’s gentle voice pulls me out of my thoughts, and I realize that I’ve drifted off once again…while staring at her. She looks a little flustered, actually, and it’s really— 

I shake my head, clearing my head once more. “Ah, sorry.”

“What are you thinking about?” 

I decide to be honest, to an extent. “You.” 

The sealer blinks. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“What about?”

“What is your dream, Setsuna?” The words surprise myself. “Do you still wish as much as you did back then to become a ninja? You’ve achieved that already, haven’t you? So are you satisfied with that?” 

She looks contemplative. “I suppose so, haven’t I...?”

_ Have you really not thought about it at all!? _

She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t really consider my dream fulfilled, though. I mean...with how close I am to the line. I might not even make it to fourth-star.” 

“It’s a harsh timeline.” I disagree. “But even with it, I think you can still do it. You’re a lot more skilled already than you think. I know it, even if no one else does.” 

She bobs her head briefly. “But it’s not you that I have to convince of the fact.”

I bite my lip. “That...that is true.” 

A mildly uncomfortable silence follows as I struggle to find something to say. 

“I guess...I’d better get back to work today.” She says quietly. 

I can’t.

“...I suppose so.” I agree, sealing my emotions behind the Veil. She reaches out and gives my hand a light squeeze before leaving me behind. 

_...Damn it... _

  
  



	41. (3.3.4) Dissonance, Part 4

#  **3.3.4 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Dissonance, Part 4**

“I see you two have lost your cat again.” 

The two civilian siblings, Mirai and Kitaro, manage to look at least a little bit guilty. Five meters above them, their cat meows cheerfully, not at all distressed despite being, once again, caught in a tree. The same tree, even.

It’s a good thing that we had decided to follow up on these children to make sure they were staying out of trouble.

“Good grief.” Mari murmurs, but she doesn’t seem at all aggrieved. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to get your cat down once more. Here, kitty!”

The animal, apparently put off by something about the brunette, scampers a bit farther away. 

“Boo.” She pouts. “It’s my Storm aura.” 

I think I understand. The feeling of her qi isn’t completely unlike the feeling of being next to a surge of electricity. It’s not surprising that animals can detect her qi and react appropriately.

Looking a bit helpless, Mari turns to me. I snort and repeat the capture method I’d used to capture the cat in the first place, bringing it down to me and using reinforcement to discourage it from scratching me up. 

“Kickball?” Kitaro asks the Storm User hopefully, holding his ball out once more as I deliver the cat into Mirai’s arms. 

“Just for a little while.” Mari says, smiling gently. 

Once again, the sister elects to sit out with me, holding her cat in her lap. 

“Hello, Mirai.” I offer simply as she takes a seat next to me on one of the park benches. 

“H-Hello….Yuki.” The black-haired girl says, sounding terribly nervous. 

Having anticipated the conversation to be as awkward as it is, and having learned from my attempt at talking to Setsuna yesterday, I’ve come prepared with a few things to talk about.

“Do you two live close to this park?” 

The shy girl nods eagerly. “Yes! Right…right down the road.” She points in what I assume is the direction of her home. 

“Ah, so not too far away from here?”

“Nope.” 

“Your parents are okay with you two being alone?” 

“Yup.”

There isn’t any trace of hesitation in her answers, indicating that she seems to come from a relatively happy, and more importantly _whole_ household. That’s something to be happy about, at least.

“When do you two need to be home by?”

“Um…seven?” 

“It’s about three-thirty right now, so…” I trail off as I notice her starstruck gaze.

“You really know what time it is?” She asks.

“Most, if not all ninja can.” I reply simply. 

“How? Can I do that, too?”

I bite off my immediate answer: _probably not._ By analyzing their own biorhythms and internal clocks, ninja aware of the own tells of their anatomy can keep track of time without any kind of external factors, especially coupled with things like the position of the sun. The processes are particularly complicated and probably not something a civilian can do, though. Every ninja picks it up at some point — knowing the time down to at _least_ minutes is very useful. 

“Well…maybe in the future?” I say hesitantly. 

“Yay!” She looks bizarrely cheerful about the prospect. I can’t imagine why such a thing would be useful to her, but if a white lie makes her happy, I’m content with letting her believe it for a little longer. 

“Kitaro really wanted to come here.” She says idly, kicking her feet. 

“So did Mari.” I say thoughtfully. The brunette approached this mission with a startling enthusiasm, deciding to come down here again despite it being a good deal out of the way of today’s patrol route. 

Well, whatever. She’s the leader.

We sit in silence for a while longer, watching our partners play around. 

“Um, Yuki…” 

“Yes, Mirai?” 

“It feels like there’s…something strange in the air.” 

I frown, concerned. “Like a smell or something?” I prepare to channel qi, but relax slightly when she shakes her head.

“No, it’s more like…a bad feeling.” The young girl looks troubled. She glances at me. “I’m…scared. It feels like…something’s going to go wrong, and I don’t like it.” 

I hesitate. I’m not sure at all how to deal with a concern like that. A premonition? How on earth should I handle that? And from a qi-less, ten-year old girl, at that? Forget reporting it in — I’m not even sure how I ought to make her feel better about it.

“…Do you know why?” I ask. She indicates no. 

“Mama and papa seem sadder.”

Hm. It may be worthwhile to pay a visit to these parents, then. Perhaps they have a more tangible reason — maybe they’ve seen something? But besides the occasional petty crime, in my second day of patrol I haven’t even caught a whiff of anything unusual. 

Moreover, this area is already outside of my patrol. I’ve followed Mari around because, well…she’s my friend and superior. But I’ve got my own things to do, as well, like train for the fourth-star examination. Although I’m pretty sure I’m at a solid fourth-star level, I still want to keep working to become stronger. 

Passing the examination isn’t my concern. It’s being a stronger ninja, and if I want to do that, to protect the people I care about, then I _must_ grow stronger. 

Alright, I’ve decided. If Mirai brings something more…concrete to me, then I’ll investigate. Otherwise, though…

“I’ll look around later on.” I lie easily. 

“Okay!” She says, looking greatly cheered.

I feel a little bad about it, but I’m just not willing to commit to a wild goose chase over something like this. 

…

Eventually, we say goodbye once more and head back. 

“See, patrol’s not so bad, right?” Mari asks as we hop over rooftops, heading toward the training ground.

“It isn’t.” I admit. I’ll admit to having had some trepidation when Mari started running these missions with me, but it’s really not so bad. 

She smiles mysteriously and changes the subject. “Thanks for bringing over food today again.” 

This morning, as per the conversation from yesterday, I’d woken up a little earlier, cooked three servings of food, then brought one over to Mari. She had been _very_ grateful and had tried to offer me money again, but I’d refused to take it. The money drain was quite low compared to the income we make off of missions, after all. 

And besides, money isn’t much of a concern when I have a wealthy civilian at my beck and call. I’ll probably visit her eventually once I figure out exactly what it is I can do with her. 

…

After we’re dismissed for training, I head away from the training field — not for more medical training this time, though. Rather, I head to the training ground I’d dueled her before in.

Recently, the blunette has been spending quite a bit more time with me, and today I’d told her that I’d head over to spar with her again. So here I am. The girl in question is standing impatiently outside of the door to the arena compartment.

_In other words, she’s taken my earlier words to heart, and has decided to focus on being a caster rather than a close-range combatant. Looks like that’s what she’ll be practicing on me today, as well._

_Sounds fun. I haven’t had a nice fight like that in a while, except against Katsuo and Hikaru, both of whom are too strong for me anyways._

“Ready to go?” She asks, a confident smirk on her face. 

“Yup.” I nod in return. 

She opens the door for me, and we both stride through, ensuring it’s securely closed after. Then, we both pulse our qi into the door, triggering the mechanism. On the outside, it will show that our room is being occupied by us. A new addition, and apparently another Chloe White project. It’s a small thing, but it does remove the possibility of someone walking into an occupied room and accidentally being blown away.

“Down for a bit of a challenge?” Sayaka asks breezily. 

“Hm. What?” 

“A favor is the stakes.” Her eyes glitter with anticipation. “But this time, a full contact, no-holds barred challenge. I want to see exactly where I stack up against you, so don’t hold back on me.”

Well. You say that, but I’m definitely not breaking out any of my Ice techniques or my capsule of Etheria. Still, though, this ought to be a very interesting fight.

“Alright. First to surrender or knockout, then?” I ask. She nods.

“Okay. I can’t wait to have two favors from you. Wonder what I’ll use them for.” 

She glares at me. “Well, I’m craving seafood, so when I kick your ass into the dirt make sure you dress up.” 

I grin, letting my Veil wash over me as I let myself fall into a basic stance. “We’ll see about that. Ready.”

“Ready.” She jumps away a good twenty meters, then flips a knife out of her holster and tosses it high into the air, falling between the two of us. I don’t need to track it with my eyes to know when it’ll land — instead, I’m watching her, meeting her eyes as she crouches low, preparing to take off. 

So…if she’s going to go all out, and she knows she can’t win in a straightforward melee fight, then the first thing she’ll do—

The knife clatters onto the ground, and I lunge forward. 

_The first thing she’ll do is try to gain distance._

Sure enough, she rockets back, a blast of Wind propelling her. Meanwhile, the ground underneath me cracks from my second step, the sheer force of the qi I pump out sending me blasting forward. 

To dodge around her little windstream, I heavily reinforce my body before slamming my foot hard into the ground, bringing me to a full stop and flipping me backwards. It’s a move I’ve seen Mari do often, although my replication of it isn’t as polished. Upside down and airborne, the blast travels harmlessly under me even as I unseal my bow, arrow already nocked, and fire.

In a single smooth movement, she pulls out another knife from her belt and hurls it, sending it along with a burst of Wind energy. The two projectiles collide midair, but mine explodes in a burst of dark smoke. 

Perfect. I land, and _immediately_ dash diagonally, cutting the gap between us while moving to the side. Unsurprisingly, she clears the dust with a quick torrent of Wind qi, but I’ve moved out of the way enough to avoid needing to dodge it, resealing my bow as I do. 

Sayaka, realizing that she can’t stop me from closing in on her, stops putting so much effort into running and begins properly fighting back. Taking aim with an outstretched arm, she begins firing condensed balls of Wind at me. 

I scoff. “If you want to win this fight, you’re going to have to break out something a little stronger than that.” 

To prove my point, I channel a fat chunk of Wind into my hands and begin slapping the spheres out of the air. When the last one comes flying in, I concentrate, then spin, grabbing it out of the air and letting it accelerate my rotation as I whirl around and send it flying right back at her.

A piercing laser of Wind energy bursts right through it and nearly tears through my chest, but having anticipated something like that, I easily slip past it before drawing my sword and infusing it with qi.

She tries to catch me with a quick burst of shots aimed at my legs, but I sidestep quickly before focusing on the energy in my blade. Slashing twice in rapid succession, I send a series of energy blades at her before charging once more. 

Sayaka fires a laser through those as well, the intense beam disrupting the constructs enough for them to dissipate harmlessly, but the time it takes for her to line up a shot gives me enough room to close on her. 

She manages to throw herself out of the way of my first slash, the tip of my blade managing to lightly cut into the fabric of her dress, then flips up, securing a position onto the ceiling once more. Before, I couldn’t chase her down because I wasn’t allowed to use the ninja arts. That rule no longer applies.

With that in mind, I leap off from the ground. She tries to pick me out of the air with another laser, thinking that I’m an easy target off the ground, but I kick off the air with a burst of Wind, deflecting myself.

Part one of battle-ready flight — being able to maneuver mid-air. Getting caught out in the middle of a jump is dangerous, let alone flight — naturally, step one is to be able to move yourself, and move yourself _quickly._

Kicking off again, I slash at her with my Wind-enhanced blade. She materializes a sword of air — _how does that work?_ — and blocks cleanly.

Frowning, I lunge using another bubble of qi, trying to force through her guard. Gritting her teeth, she begins channeling more and more power into her Wind sword, the blade becoming increasingly visible as she does so. 

Realizing I’m not going to win this, I lunge the _other_ way instead, disengaging violently. Realizing what’s about to happen, I throw my sword away intentionally as it — and I — are caught up in the ensuring windstorm, the blade flashing past my eyes. Safe from impaling myself, but flying through the air forcefully, I flip myself with a burst of qi, managing to catch myself with both hands on the ground in an improvised handstand that’s forceful enough to shatter the stone beneath them.

If I hadn’t been at third-level reinforcement — rapid reinforcement is something I’ve been training hard into myself — I would have likely been crippled permanently. Despite my reinforcement, though, the act actually fractures both my hands and dislocates my left wrist, but I ignore the spike of pain and continue my flip, springing away as the blast from her sword crashes into where I’ve landed.

Mid-air, I’m forced to use my bad hand to deflect another bolt of Wind from Sayaka. Not able to get enough qi into it in time, I aggravate the damage to the hand enough to make it totally useless for a few moments. Thankfully, my regeneration is already kicking in, leaving me to use my Wind to send me rolling _closer_ to her.

I’m positive she wouldn’t have expected me to continue the engagement with such obvious injuries, and as I’d thought, a bolt of Wind sails well over my head. 

She’s doing that trick again — firing small bursts of qi into an aura of intense Wind to create a sort of rapid-fire technique. This time, though, she’s improved both her rate of fire and power. I had expected to easily deflect the previous shot, but it had caught me by surprise.

What a dumb mistake. She’s hardly been stagnating — I _know_ she’s gotten stronger. Forcing myself to move with qi, I unseal my bow and three arrows from the seal on it, empowering them and firing them as fast as I’m able at her.

Thanks to intense practice, it takes me only a second to fire my empowered arrows. Under the same principle that allowed her concentrated laser to destroy my Wind blades, I’m able to destroy the bolts of qi, even as they destroy my arrows.

Whatever. With the seals on my bow courtesy of Setsuna, I’ve got hundreds of them. Not a big deal. More importantly, my rate of fire is actually faster than Sayaka’s. 

After fifteen traded shots, she’s forced to dodge sideways as an arrow opens a cut along her shoulder, stabbing into the stone. Seeing my opportunity, I unseal an explosive arrow and let it fly. She counters with a bolt of Wind, once again causing the arrow to erupt mid-air.

Not content with stopping there, I release three smoke arrows, firing them all at once in a spread. More smoke billows into the air.

It buys me the time to move away as I begin making an aspect shift to Water. Nineteen seconds. Nineteen seconds to shift. 

Well, when in doubt…

I start unsealing more explosive arrows, leaping away while releasing them in bursts of three once more. Explosions rock the room as I move randomly away, making sure I’m not a stationary target if Sayaka—

A massive blast of Wind erupts through the smoke, blowing it all away and nearly detonating my own explosive arrows in my face. Thankfully, I’m able to unseal it quickly and reinforce myself, letting myself be carried on the forceful gust.

“Alright, Yuki!” Sayaka shouts when the dust clears, looking distinctly irritated. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but I’m going to show you just how I got my fifth-star ribbon!” 

_Twelve seconds, seven more to go before I shift._

Then I realize what she’s said.

“Wait, _fifth_ -star?”

She grins victoriously. “Just yesterday!”

_She went from fourth to fifth that quickly!?_

“What, then?” I ask curiously. She starts confidently walking towards me looking distinctly ruffled, but also _very_ smug. 

“You know how you can’t really make a territory for Wind, right?” She asks.

I blink. “Of course.” 

Due to the nature of Wind, it’s virtually impossible to maintain any kind of qi territory. It’s just too insubstantial by its very nature. The air resists being used, and that’s why so much of Wind is just applying force to get what you want, like the air bolts that Sayaka is such a fan of. Only Wind Spellweavers can do it, and they’re tight-lipped about how.

_And that’s nineteen. I’ve aspect-shifted to Water, now._

“Well…” She smirks. “Did you know that I can do it?” 

I freeze. 

_No, she couldn’t be…_

Wind swirls around her, her aura warping into the visible spectrum and especially intensifying around her hands.

_This must be…the completed version of that technique she was doing earlier._

A surge of qi erupts from her hand, instantly amplifying and becoming a pure, wide shockwave of force that shatters the stone in front of her. Dialing my reinforcement up to eleven, I cross my arms and absorb the hit, sliding backwards.

…I was over thirty meters away from her, and with an unfocused burst of qi, she sent me reeling. 

_What would a direct hit do to me?!_

The Wind User grins. “Like it? I present to you…” 

_“Turbulent Air!”_

I snort.

“So, uh. How ridiculous did you feel shouting that out loud?” I ask, suppressing a smile. 

Sayaka’s face goes bright red. 

“If you keep talking like that, I’ll have to disown you as my rival.” I snark. 

“S-Shut up!” She makes a claw with her hand and slashes at me. Eyes widening, I sprint away as a group of invisible Wind blades narrowly miss me, gouging the stone wall behind me.

_I think taking a direct hit like that would cleave me in two. I definitely need to dodge those._

Growling, the blunette slashes at me rapidly, both hands emitting tiny, intense bursts of qi that are amplified by her aura, creating dozens of blades. 

Letting myself slip to a lower level of reinforcement, I start calling my qi together before realizing that I’m no longer Wind-aspected.

_Careless._

Instead, I gather my qi and spit out a burst of compacted Water that absorbs the first set of slashes, before ducking the next group. While crouched, I unseal a scroll from my tool belt, pump qi into it, and kick it at her, sending it skittering along the ground. 

Warily, she _moves_ , so fast that she cracks the floor underneath her with her steps. A medium pool’s worth of qi-enhanced Water erupts from the scroll, Water that I’ve prepared beforehand with Setsuna.

More importantly, Water that I can control immediately, having infused it with my qi as I released it. Locking onto it with the control of a proper Water User, I send it crashing towards Sayaka, forcing her to jump away repeatedly.

_I’m not the same one-dimensional fighter I used to be!_

Unsealing my bow, I launch a special steel arrow at her. Upon release, it massively increases in velocity, aiming to cut her off.

_You shouldn’t have taken your eyes off of me!_

She dodges just a little too late. The arrow meets her intense Wind aura and is diverted ever so slightly, slashing through her side and drawing a spurt of blood.

A nasty wound, but far better than outright going right through her. Damn that Wind aura. I’d thought a steel arrow would have pierced it, given the sheer velocity given to it by Setsuna’s seal, but it was a bit more…turbulent than expected.

“Agh!” Concentration lost, her _territory_ — whatever it is, anyways — falls apart, and the Water washes over her a moment later. 

Sealing my bow, I thrust both hands out, directing the Water to crash against the floor, crushing her under the weight of the Water. Such a thing would be potentially fatal to a weaker person, but I know she’s stronger than that. 

When the Water flows away, I make a fist, calling the Water back to her location to crush her under it once more, but she leaps up to her feet and calls together a burst of Wind, sending the Water flying everywhere. 

Jumping away, she sends a blast of Wind that intensifies into a sheer _pillar_ of force, piercing the hasty wall of Water I erect as a defense. Thankfully, it doesn’t make it past the second water scroll I launch, dissipating against the sheer volume of liquid released.

“Not that shit again!” The very-waterlogged and bruised girl swears angrily, another massive laser attempting to smash me out of the air. Some quick thinking on my part lets me slow it down for a fraction of a section, enough for me to dart out of its direct path.

The problem with fighting a Water user in a confined area as a Wind user is that Wind can’t do much to get rid of the Water the way that a Fire User could, and even an Earth User could trap the Water away with enough finesse. 

No, all they can do is push it around, and water is _heavy_. 

Now, creating enough water from my qi to seriously inconvenience Sayaka would be impossible. Materialization of Water is _expensive_ , in qi terms. But…simply unsealing it from a pre-prepared scroll? Much, much easier.

Scowling, Sayaka takes a few seconds to charge up a _powerful_ blast of Wind, sending the Water around her exploding away and obscuring my vision of her. It’s only the fact that my qi is spread throughout the Water that lets me react to her incredibly fast charge — in what seems like an instant, she closes the large gap between us and lands a spin kick into my guard.

_Gods above._

It feels like I’ve just been hit by a war hammer, or one of Mari’s mildly serious punches — I’m sent rocketing back, managing to qi-slide across the water — but am interrupted by the wall behind me, smashing painfully into it. Although the impact fractures a few of my bones and the back of my skull, submerging myself deep within the Veil is sufficient to maintain the presence of mind needed to duck her follow-up kick that nearly takes my head off. 

_Damn. With her like this, she’s easily a superior close-range combatant. My first-level reinforcement can’t take this at all._

There’s an obvious weakness to her in this state, though — as overwhelming as it is, she’s not actually as fast or clean as Mari. There’s a notable lag between her movements, and that must be a result of maintaining her strange territory. 

It creates an opening, though — with relatively few options, I gather as much Water to me as I can, the mass of liquid slamming into her back and catching her totally by surprise. The sheer shock is actually sufficient to snap her out of her concentrated state entirely, as I’d suspected it would, and has the side effect of slamming her into me, something I was completely prepared for. 

My reinforced fist, already moving, crashes into her stomach. 

Choking out blood, Sayaka tries to respond with an elbow to my head, but the Water soaking her slows her down significantly. Since the Water is condensed with my qi, however, I don’t feel the same disadvantage, and move through it with relative ease. She’s slow enough for me to easily dodge around her, letting me grab her by the throat and slam her into the wall even as I use my qi to keep us submerged with my Water control. 

She chokes, bubbles spilling from her mouth as I start applying pressure, and instinctively releases a massive burst of Wind from her body that sends me and the Water around us flying away. Thankfully, I’m still alert enough to catch myself on the water coating the ground, qi-sliding over it. 

_Ow. Ow ow ow._

She must have managed to reassert her _Turbulent Air_ — an _incredible_ feat, given that she was choking underwater prior to that — and sent a burst of qi at me. My whole body feels bruised, but thankfully I’d reinforced myself expecting some kind of retaliation. Otherwise, she might have ripped me apart with that.

The soaked blunette collapses to the ground, ejecting the water from her throat and lungs with a burst of qi, but she still needs to gasp desperately for oxygen that I denied her. I don’t press my attack immediately, taking a few seconds of precious concentration to heal the damage I’ve taken in the last set of exchanges. 

“Y-You’ve been…really working on that Water affinity…I see.” Sayaka’s voice carries easily through the room, even with the Water still splashing around. She stands up once more, but it’s clearly that she’s exhausted and in pain.

“Yep.” I say cheerfully. The time it’s taken her to recover has allowed me to heal up all of my injuries, and I’m mostly ready to go. “Looks like my _third-star_ Water affinity is plenty good enough to kick your fifth-star Wind affinity across the room, eh?” 

She glares, sending me a two-fingered salute. 

“Try materializing that much water by yourself and see how well you’re doing after that.” She mutters darkly. 

_Even with my qi capacity and efficiency, it’d run me dry._

Instead of admitting to that, I turn one of her old statements on her: 

“Yes. We’re ninja. Cheating is what we do.”

She stares at me, open-mouthed, before a rueful laugh escapes her lips. 

“Alright, Yuki. Clever. But, you know…you aren’t the only one with a secondary affinity.” Steam begins filling the air — no, rather, it’s rising off of her, off the water evaporating from her body. I blink.

“…You’re bringing a Fire affinity against a Water User?” I ask. She smiles tiredly.

“Eh.” 

With that noncommittal answer, Wind explodes out from her once more as she blasts across the room and lashes out with a whirling kick that cuts through my hasty Water wall and slams into my stomach. 

Caught off guard, I hit the back wall _hard_ , not reinforced enough to take such an impact easily. It’s rendered moot as she reappears in front of me and stabs me with a syringe that she’s pulled out from _somewhere_ , the needle sliding into my shoulder as I’m momentarily stunned. Instantly, I can feel my qi lock down.

_Qi suppressant._

Her fist crashes into the stone next to my head a moment later, obliterating it.

“Checkmate.” She mutters. 

Realizing there’s no way out of this — I can’t cleanse this suppressant _nearly_ fast enough to do anything about it — I sigh.

“So…you didn’t really have a Fire affinity, then?” 

“Nah. Now stop stalling and give up.” 

“I surrender.” I admit. There’s nothing I can do about it. She tricked me, and I fell for it like an idiot. 

“You give up? I win? Cool.” Without any hesitation, she falls onto me, forcing me to catch her. 

“Sayaka, what—“ 

Oh. She’s dead asleep. Huh. That’s…well. 

Well, a loss is a loss. 

“You’re lucky healing is an internal art, or I wouldn’t even be able to carry you out of here.” I mutter to the unconscious girl. 

She doesn’t reply.

That kick really messed me up. It’s easy to dismiss my injuries in the heat of combat because I know my regeneration will patch me up and my Veil will dull most of the pain, but that single hit was actually forceful enough to rupture my stomach. It would have been a severe wound had I not had regenerative properties, since stomach acid getting everywhere causes severe complications to normal healing. 

Thankfully, my regeneration is advanced enough to take care of all of that, or I’d have been in pretty serious trouble. 

Affectionately, I ruffle her hair as I temporarily set her up against the wall. 

“You really _have_ gotten stronger, haven’t you?” 


	42. (3.3.5) Dissonance, Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to begin digging into the real theme of this particular Arc.

#  **3.3.5 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Dissonance, Part 5**

A few minutes later, I’ve sealed the last of the water back into the sealing scrolls, using my affinity with Water to collect it all into one spot and filtering out the debris with relatively little issue. 

Surveying the area, I study the damage we’ve caused. Craters from missed impacts and explosives litter the floor, walls, and even the ceiling. In a few places, layers of stone have been ground away to reveal the steel upon which the stasis seals are placed. More than a few arrows are scattered everywhere or embedded into the rock, although the arrowheads probably shattered against the steel. 

I can definitely fight at a much higher level than I was able to before. Despite using my secondary affinity, I was able to control most of the second half of that fight, against someone who could create a _Wind Territory_ , no less. If she had the stamina to maintain it properly, she’d definitely be ranked as a sixth-star, at least. Just manifesting the damn thing got her a fifth-star ranking, after all. The problem was that, once she started using it, she tired herself out to the point of falling asleep after only a few minutes of running it. 

Even if I can fight on a higher level, though, it isn’t _nearly_ enough. Sayaka’s versatility with her primary element badly outstripped mine, to the point where I actually had to switch off to a different one. I should be closer to Sayaka’s level, yet she outclassed me with Wind…badly. And here we’d both thought I’d been ahead of her. She has everything up on me — even power, now, with that _Turbulent Air_ of hers. Creating a territory of Wind...I really hadn’t thought such a thing was possible. 

No, I do have one thing on her — stamina. But that doesn’t mean much if I can’t last long enough to _use_ it.

_I need to improve or I’ll be left behind._

It’s true that she’s a pure Wind specialist, whereas I have three different main affinities to juggle around and two more besides that, not to mention my side interest in Etheria…it’s impossible for me to keep up with Wind, isn’t it? But...

After dropping off the exhausted girl at her house, I head home, brushing past Setsuna who’s busy writing some kind of massive array on a scroll, and head down into the basement.

The most optimal thing for me in a real fight would be to ensure that I can switch between multiple elements. Ice and Wind are easy — I’ve relied on Wind for so long that it’s practically my primary element, and it takes a mere three seconds to snap my qi over to Wind from any other element.

Water? Nineteen seconds.

Earth? Thirty six. 

Fire? A minute and fifteen seconds.

I’m not too concerned about the latter two. My affinities with them are rather weak, so being able to do it at all is something I’m fine with. And I can survive for the three seconds necessary to flip to Wind, and the moment it takes for me to shift into Ice. 

Nineteen seconds for my secondary element, however, is unacceptable. But even that time is so hard to improve on. It takes hours of work at this level to lower the time significantly at all (where significant is half a second).

I sigh heavily and sit, taking a cross-legged position in the middle of the room. Well, there’s nothing to do about it except go to work. 

Identify my qi. Convert to Water. Rinse, repeat. 

Faster, faster, more precisely. 

Again and again I repeat the process, losing track of time. Thankfully, though, I’ve internalized the process so much that I can think about other things while I do it, and so I do.

_…Somehow, I’ve fallen behind the curve._

I’d noticed it before in the interrogation exercise, knew that Sayaka had been ahead of me in terms of Wind manipulation, what with her versatility. I was still able to defeat her with my reinforcement and general battle ability, but…I’d known I was behind then, filed it in the back of mind. Acknowledged it, but not done as much as I should have.

And now that gap is clearly obvious. Forget ranks, forget the fact that she’s already fifth-star in Wind. What she’s done, creating a Wind Territory…I’ve never seen it before.

Oh, that certainly doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. But, theoretically, I hadn’t thought such a thing was even possible in the first place. Anchoring Wind enough to create a territory…? 

Hell, giving Wind form is troublesome enough. The element just doesn’t want to be restrained. Idly I hold out my hand, calling the element to me. With my control over Wind, it isn’t hard to cause a small breeze to go through the otherwise motionless room. 

Closing my eyes and focusing, I begin focusing more, turning the breeze into a small whirlwind. It takes far longer than I’m comfortable with, certainly not enough to be battlefield-worthy. 

Letting the Wind die down, I instead call on the qi in my body, reinforcing my skin. The first three levels come with the ease of thousands of hours of practice, and the fourth level takes only a little longer.

_Filling the gaps, securing the weaknesses._

With the power running through me, I could put a fist through someone’s chest with barely any resistance. Hell, at this level I could probably go straight through stone. 

Not good enough. 

My reinforcement, as strong as it is, still failed against Sayaka. Part of it is the element, I know. Wind is naturally inclined to pierce, making it a natural counter to reinforcement. 

But…I’m not okay with that. 

I’m not going to let myself lose to something like this, damn it to hell. So _what_ if Wind counters reinforcement? My aberration, my Ice…I _know_ that it can stand up to something like this. Nothing but the strongest piercers, piercers like Sayaka’s laser attack, should be able to get through it. 

Petty pride, perhaps, but—

_…Pride?_

_Since when do I have anything like_ that?

I sigh heavily. It seems that all these competitions recently have been stirring something up in me that had remained dormant throughout the Academy, where I’d been so ahead of my peers that it hadn’t been remotely close. The control I needed to manage my aberration and make it mine ensured that. 

But now? Now my peers are catching up. 

That being said, I’m positive I could beat Sayaka in a fight to the death. My poisoned Ice is horrifyingly lethal, even as rudimentary as it is. My general Ice control is also quite potent, surpassing both of my other elements, and then there’s _that_ technique…

_But I can’t use any of that right now._

I need to have more versatility. I need to have more defensive abilities. What else do I need?

_I need speed._

Mari’s examination matches highlighted to me just how much having a mobility advantage means. You can’t be a slow ninja…er, a slow competent ninja. As possibly the best example of a powerful ninja at around my age, Mari’s sheer speed and power allows her to mostly bypass things like finesse and skill entirely, although she does have both.

_Actually, no, it’s totally wrong to say Mari doesn’t have control. Her ability to travel so fast but stop perfectly, her insane reflexes…she’s leveraged her gifts so ridiculously well in a way that brings together an incredibly powerful combat package. All she needs now is stamina and support, which are two things Setsuna and I bring to the table._

But still, her sheer speed makes her an opponent obscenely challenging to fight. Even without her Storm Cloak, she could kick me around like a pinball in sheer hand-to-hand, and I only beat her in sword combat through raw luck and experience. 

I desperately need to increase my physical parameters, in other words. 

Yes, I need to get much stronger. And fast.

I’ll start tomorrow. First, I’ll see if Setsuna’s able to take a small break and ask her about anything I can do to accelerate the training. I’m completely willing to put in the time and effort, of course, but the faster I can get stronger, the better. 

Wait. No, there’s a better idea I should try before I go bothering her about it. After all, I’ve long been able to call upon the Wind to empower me. Is it so impossible to make the Wind _restrict_ me, too? By making it harder to move, I should be able to give myself quite the workout. 

It takes me much of the night to figure out, but I do succeed on getting a workable technique together. It’s pretty inefficient, but an hour of intense workout tells me that it _does_ seem to work, and work well.

Exhausted both physically, mentally, and spiritually, I make my way up and out of the basement. The lamp is still lit in the living room, so I make my way over.

Huh.

Curled up on the ground, clearly having fallen asleep, is my overworked, overstressed friend. 

“Oh, Setsuna…” I murmur under my breath. Since she’s stealthily awoken every day to continue her early training, I’ve been waking up to an empty bed for a bit over a week, with only a few exceptions. 

It’s been pretty lonely, not that I’ve ever said anything to Setsuna. How would I even go about bringing up something as dumb as that to her? Even if I think she’s training far too much, I don’t want to…

_But…_

That’s right, I’d gotten distracted — by training, by Sayaka, by Mari, by the missions I’ve been running, by this strange unease I’ve been feeling as of late…I don’t know what it is. It’s faint, so very faint as to be practically unnoticeable, but I feel it nonetheless. 

Whatever the case, I’d lost sight of my original goal. I’m well aware that Setsuna is literally killing herself with the rate of her training. And I’m equally aware that I need her to _stop_ that, and I’ve already established that manipulating her into doing so is the best way to go about it. She definitely won’t respond to a direct approach, so this is the only path. Isn’t it?

Unbidden, my handler’s words from that night come to my mind.

_“Understand, Yuki. Emotion has no place in the ninja world. But yet, it is everything that makes you human. It’s up to you to identify where you stand. Are you a human first, or a ninja? Which is better for the village? Which is better for you?”_

Manipulating Setsuna is what a ninja would do. Cold, unwavering logic. It’s the path I’ve walked for the longest time.

At least, so I tell myself. In truth, since meeting Setsuna, I’ve deviated so terribly far from this path that it isn’t even funny. And the one time I’d really, properly walked it, I shaved the flesh off a woman’s legs. 

Hadn’t I also told myself that night that I’d prioritize protecting Setsuna over being a ninja? But this path _would_ protect Setsuna, wouldn’t it?

Then why do I struggle so much to follow it?

I need to get stronger. That’s simply all there is to it. I could probably pass the fourth-star examination right now, but that’s not enough. That isn’t nearly enough. When had I started thinking that would be okay? 

Unbidden, a feeling of coldness begins creeping into my mindscape.

“I’ve gotten soft.” I mutter under my breath as I walk over, stepping around the sealing scrolls and ink scattered everywhere. “And it’s all your fault.” 

Leaning down, I gently lift the sleeping girl up. 

“I know you’re awake.” I say softly. “You’re too good of a sensor to not have felt me enter the room.” 

She doesn’t stir, making me slightly less certain as to her state of consciousness. Well, awake or not, it won’t stop me from doing what I must. 

Lifting the girl into my arms, I make my way around all of the scattered supplies and head to the bedroom, gently depositing her on the bed.

What time is it? One in the morning? Well, there’s still plenty of time to train, then. As much as it’s true that I’m exhausted, but—

As I turn away, a hand snaps out to tug at my arm.

“I knew it.” I say, glancing back at the girl. “You were awake all along, weren’t you?”

“Don’t go...” She murmurs sleepily. 

Wordlessly, I gather qi into my fingertips and poke her right in the forehead. The targeted qi attack renders her instantly and painlessly unconscious.

“You need your sleep.” I gently pull her hand off of my arm and turn away. “And I _don’t._ ”

Using my Veil to suppress mental fatigue and my healing mastery to handle the physical damage, I could theoretically train indefinitely. The only limits are physical stamina and qi, and while I wait for those, I can meditate, research, and practice aspect shifting.

I head back into the basement, committing to another six hours of training.

That’s right, Setsuna might be killing herself with her ridiculous idea of training, but I know I can handle it. In the end, it just...isn’t right for me to restrict her training. I can heal her, should she need it. And she’s mature enough to make her own decisions, even if I disagree with them.

This way, I won’t need to manipulate her. As her friend, as someone who I care about...all I should try to do is help her. 

...I’ll be doing the same thing, after all. Just better.

I’ve spent too much time being a human. But that won’t protect Setsuna. 

_I need to be stronger._

Once I step into the basement, I call my Wind to me, weighing myself down. I’m exhausted to hell, and so damn tired. But I’m used to being pressed against the wall like this. I’ve simply…forgotten, is all, what it’s like to bring myself beyond my limits.

But I’ve never shied away from doing such a thing, and I shall not now. 

  
“Here we go.”


	43. (3.3.6) Dissonance, Part 6

#  **3.3.6 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Dissonance, Part 6**

“Yuki!” Setsuna’s voice shouts through the basement hatch. 

Sighing, I let my focus dissipate, the dagger of Ice in my hand dissolving into snowflakes. It’s about seven, about the time I would normally have woken up.

“On my way.” I reply, making my way over.

What a productive evening. Although I couldn’t drain my qi to the extent I would have liked during training due to the upcoming team training, I’ve still cut my shift to Water down to fifteen seconds, an absolutely insane improvement to manage in one night. Besides that, I’ve further improved my control over my two primary elements, and gotten some intense physical training in. 

Exiting the hatch, I’m immediately greeted by what appears to be a rather well-rested Setsuna. I guess she slept well after all. 

“Have you been training all night?” She asks, voice rising. “Have you slept at all?” 

“Yes and no.” I admit.

“You…Yuki, you’ll hurt yourself, going that hard…” She trails off at my stare. 

“No, I won’t.” I hold a glowing green hand to my temple. “Physical fatigue can be handled with my healing, and mental fatigue can be suppressed with the Veil.”

That’s right. She has absolutely no room to protest. Frankly, even if I hadn’t had a way to heal the damage, she’s doing basically the exact same thing as I am. Any argument she could make would work against her, and from the stunned look on her face, she knows it, too.

“Anyways, we should still have leftovers from the other day, shouldn’t we? We can bring Mari some of those, too.” 

Wordlessly, she unseals the food as requested, and we eat our meal in silence. I spend the time practicing affinity shifting once more. Setsuna doesn’t seem particularly inclined to talk, even after we’ve cleaned up and are ready to go. 

It’s actually a little alarming. Even her scatterbrained, introverted, seal-happy self finds something to talk about with me, even with her excessive training. In fact, with her ridiculous schedule, she’s been even more talkative during these sort of free periods we share, almost as if she’s trying to make up for the lost time where we would normally have spent some time together.

Huh. Perhaps that’s exactly what she was doing. What a strange girl.

Stranger still that I sort of miss it now. 

The Ice creeps further. 

...

Training runs normally for the most part. Instead of going on patrol with Mari, I ask her to run me through my paces in a hand-to-hand fight, one where I weigh myself down with the technique. I lose a lot, and badly at that, but in the process further refine my control over the technique. 

Mari, apparently interested, has me try to work the technique to run on her, too. It takes half an hour, but I’m eventually able to wrap it around her well enough to do so, and get a rather intimate feel of her qi in the process. It’s very…buzzy, for lack of a better word. A bit strange to interact with, and very different from anyone else, but very,  _ very _ intense. Even more intense than Hikaru’s. 

“This is pretty neat.” Mari mutters, running through a lightning-fast kata. “I can feel the pull on my movements, like I’m being restric—“

Because of her ridiculous strength, the aura ruptures like a balloon and I lose control of it. The tightly packed Wind rushes away from her, causing me to slide back slightly. 

I shoot her a deadpan glare. “You’re way too fast and strong for this to work.”

“…Oops?” She says sheepishly. I shrug. 

“Well…maybe if I had Spellweaver-level amounts of qi control, I’d be able to hold it…” I trail off, thinking. With the way she moved, it hadn’t even lasted a full second before I lost it. Keeping up with her for any amount of time would require truly insane levels of focus. 

“Eh, don’t bother. It isn’t worth it.” She says, shrugging. “If it can’t handle me at this level, there’s no way it could handle me when I kick into my Storm Cloak.” 

I roll my eyes. “Even if I  _ could _ keep up with you, your Storm Qi would just negate it, dummy.”

“Oh. Yeah. Forgot about that.” 

Mari’s particularly potent qi has a way of not cooperating well with other qi due to its particularly volatile nature. This is a boon for defense against other qi techniques and a downside for allied ones. 

“Any update on the siblings?” I ask, as I reapply the technique to myself and begin forcing myself to run through an exercise. 

“Oh?” She asks, jumping in and casually beginning to trade light blows back and forth with me. “Didn’t know you cared so much.” 

I glare at her, throwing a punch her way that she easily blocks. “Their situation is sort of weird. I’m…concerned.”

She smiles, but doesn’t pursue it further. “Well…I’ve got nothing. I wish I could report it higher, but without something more concrete…”

I nod. “I understand.” 

It  _ is _ a weird situation, but there’s so little to run off of. Officially, there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it, and even  _ I’m _ not inclined to look further into it until I get something a little more substantial.

…

Once training is done, I head off to Sayaka’s house once more. We don’t have anything planned, but I’d wanted to check up on her after she’d literally fallen unconscious on me. 

“Oh, hey, Yuki.” Sayaka says, opening the door. “What’s up?”

“Just wanted to talk about a few things. May I come in?” 

“Mmm…” A small smile flashes across her face. “Sure. I’d just been about to seek you out myself.”

I snort, stepping inside and making my way down to the couch. The place is as messy as it was the last time I’d visited. “Any ideas for that favor I owe you now?” 

The blunette smirks, sitting down next to me. “Oh, I’ll be saving that one for something  _ good _ .”

“Don’t go too overboard.” I warn. “You know as well as I do that I’d cancel out anything truly insane with my own favor.”

She frowns. “Well then. Looks like I’ll need to get another favor up on you.” 

“Ha. No.” 

She bats her eyelashes at me playfully. “Pretty please?”

“No.”

She sticks her tongue out at me. “You’re no fun. Anyways, to business, I guess. You said you wanted to talk?”

“Yeah…well, first of all, congratulations on the win.” I say. “That  _ Turbulent Air _ of yours is an incredible technique.”

She flushes proudly. “Like it? They’ll promote me to sixth-star once I refine it a little more and am able to hold it up for longer than five minutes.” 

“I’ll get back to that in a moment, but I was actually curious about what you did right before you ended the fight, that little bluff you did. Where you evaporated all the water off of you with fire. Or, well, I’d thought it was fire…”

“It wasn’t any element at all.” 

“…Say that again?” I ask, blinking. 

“I just ground my qi against itself to create friction.” 

I contemplate that, drawing a bit of qi into my fingers and pressing them together. It isn’t challenging, not when I have two different surfaces to apply qi from, but…to make it press against  _ itself _ , without that layer…? And across your whole body?

Sayaka watches me with clear amusement on her face.

“Heehee.” 

“Quiet, you.” 

Maybe if you…no, you couldn’t possibly do something like that, not without superhuman levels of control. And while I think Sayaka is good, she isn’t  _ that _ good, so that can’t possibly be it…

“Let me know when you want me to tell you how it’s done.” She teases.

I ignore her, but after a good fifteen minutes of thinking, during which she’s mockingly lied down across the couch, her legs in my lap, I’m forced to concede defeat.

“Alright, how?”

She lets out a satirical snore. 

“Very funny. Sayaka…ahem, o Mistress, please bequeath upon your humble servant the gift of knowledge.” I say sarcastically.

“Well…you’ve been overlooking something very important. There’s a qi medium that every ninja has, an external one even, but—“

“W-Wait, the aura!?” I ask. 

It’s honestly easy to forget about because I work so comparatively little with it. I definitely wouldn’t have thought to use it in the way she’s suggesting.

The aura…in other words, the qi a ninja naturally leaks out. It can be suppressed through practice, making it challenging to detect one’s presence. Setsuna, in particular, is a master at it, but her aura is already quite weak to begin with. Aura strength is governed by two major factors — quantity and quality. 

I, who has above-average quantity for my age and fairly decent quality, have a fairly strong aura. Again, this is relative. Mari, who has above-average quantity and extremely high quality qi, has quite the potent aura. 

“Yep.”

I close my eyes, concentrating. A flash of insight occurs to me:

“Ooh. So that’s how your qi territory works, isn’t it?” 

“Precisely. I use my aura as an anchor for it.” 

I definitely wouldn’t have thought to use my aura as a medium for anything, let alone something as ridiculous as a Wind Territory. The aura is a natural expression of oneself, a completely ordinary body function for ninja, in the same way breathing is. You learn to suppress it and flare it, certainly, but…to conceive of the idea of using it to manipulate qi? It’s certainly not impossible, but it must have taken  _ tons _ of work. 

It’s true that I used that aural technique back when we had our spar to push Wind out of my body, but I only use my aura because it’s in the way of open air and my skin. Really, it’s nothing more than a channel, at best — the qi is directed and focused long before it gets to my aura. 

“That’s incredible.”

“I know.” Sayaka flashes me a smug, satisfied look. I can’t fault her for feeling prideful — it really is an amazing feat. 

Then I realize I’ve missed something.

“…Wait, my technique from before—“ 

She grins. 

“Yes. That’s the key I needed to finish my technique. I’d been toying around with the concept of a Wind Territory for a long time — that trick I do, creating a field to pulse qi through, that was the preliminary form.” 

“So even back then, during the team exercise, you had already been working on it?” 

The blunette shrugs. “Of course. I’d been working for the longest time to beat you, after all. Ever since that power duel…”

It would seem our paths of development have been pretty similar after all. Both of us focused on control, but I’ve branched off into other things — my mind, for one. Aspect shifting. My Ice, poisons, healing. 

Sayaka seems to have focused almost entirely on Wind control, with healing as a secondary thing. Although I had been and presumably still am more  _ powerful _ than her — namely that I can output more qi at once — she has so much control that she can effectively fake power with it, power that is greater than what I can bring to bear.

Well, that makes what had been obvious before clearer.

_ In every way imaginable, Sayaka surpasses me as a Wind Ninja. _

It’s hard to swallow, to be honest. Just a few days ago I’d kicked her ass in a close-combat contest, after all. It hadn’t felt like she’d been stronger than me at all — but, of course, that’s because of our differing specialties. I’m a close to mid range combatant, while Sayaka specializes at mid to long range distance.

_ That being said, with her new technique, even her raw close-combat potential is roughly equal to mine. _

…Sayaka may legitimately be a better ninja than me at this point. 

I’ve gotten sloppy. With the gap that had existed between us in the Academy, she should not have been able to catch up. In close combat, maybe, given that she’d been stronger than me then — except I had turned that around on her. But in the ninja arts?

This is a problem. I haven’t trained as much as I have…and the catalyst for that?

_ Setsuna. _

I’ve spent too long worrying about feelings, and having fun, and indeed simply been putting too much time into other ventures. And now I’m falling behind the curve. 

“That’s a complicated expression.” Sayaka notes. “Something wrong?” 

“Last night, I developed a new Wind technique, but I can tell it’s definitely flawed.” I deflect. “I’ve been wondering if I could ask for your assistance in polishing it.” 

Aquamarine eyes bore into mine. 

“I’ll consider it. Show it to me.” 

No jokes, no playful banter, just the serious visage of my former classmate and current rival. I nod, stepping back. It takes a few moments, but I’m able to call the Wind to myself, weighing myself down.

“…Heh. That’s a bastardized version of my  _ Turbulent Air _ , but far less versatile, isn’t it?”

I shrug. “I’ll admit that was the inspiration, but the intent was specifically to restrict movement.”

“Physical training?”

“Precisely.”

“…It’s really messy.”

“I know. Hence the request.”

She sighs gustily. “Alright. This one’ll cost you that favor, though.”

“Sure.” 

I suspect it won’t be too hard to win that favor back, anyways. I’d been…reluctant to throw it away so quickly, but any embarrassment or inconvenience that Sayaka inflicts upon me will be well worth the benefit of having her look in on it. It’s just a simple fact that Sayaka has superior Wind Control when compared to me. 

“The easiest way to do this will be…hm, I see. Alright.” She stands up and makes her way behind me. “I’m going to start messing around with your qi. Turn it on.”

“Got it.” 

With my consent, she places her hands on my shoulders, right through my Wind aura. I can feel her tense up as her qi begins probing mine, washing over me sort of like a warm blanket. 

What a strange sensation. 

Stranger still is the sensation as she uses her qi to…outline my aura? I’m not sure how to describe it precisely. 

“Alright. Turn it off.”

I do so.

“You can anchor this technique on your aura the same way I anchor my Wind Territory. If you intertwine this with your normal Aura, you might even be able to keep it on near-permanently. Obviously, there’s no way to suppress your aura while it’s active, but…” 

“I see. So I need to practice manipulating my aura with my Wind element?” 

“Eh, you could. Or…take off your clothes, Yuki.” 

“What.” 

“Increased intimacy will let us — and by us I mean  _ me _ — interact with your qi better. I might be able to actually force the technique to do what I want. Then you’ll just have to mimic that instead of coming up with it yourself.”

“…Alright.”

I strip out of my clothes, still facing away from the pretty blunette. Sayaka does the same, although, for some reason, I’m positive her gaze isn’t entirely professional.

“Alright.” I can hear the sounds of movement behind me. “Come back to the couch and sit on my lap.”

“…Okay.” 

Normally, I’d just walk backwards. However, with the mess that Sayaka leaves around, I’d be concerned about falling onto something sharp, so I can’t help but turn around.

…I sink a bit deeper into my Veil as well. 

It’s not enough to stop my eyes from quickly flicking up and down her body, though. Sayaka is...well, frankly speaking, gorgeous. 

And sure enough, her eyes are doing their own…exploring, so to speak.

“Stop that.” I command, flushing despite myself.

She shrugs. The movement does interesting things to her chest. “This is what I’m getting out of it. Let me enjoy it.” 

I roll my eyes, but stand there for a good five seconds before she’s satisfied. 

“Well, come sit.” She pats her lap. “Face your back to me.”

It feels very strange to be sitting on someone else’s lap, especially a naked girl’s lap. Thankfully, the girl is only a little shorter than me, so I don’t feel like I’m crushing her. And I know she’s plenty strong as is.

“…I can’t channel my technique from this position.” 

“I know.” She responds. “That’s not what I’m trying to sense, though.”

“Then…?”

“Shh.”

I fall silent as she requests, feeling mildly uncomfortable as her qi seems to…envelop mine, for lack of a better word. Like a warm energy hug. It feels quite strange, and  _ very _ intimate, far more than I’m used to from her.

“…Relax, Yuki.”

I sink further into the Veil. 

“There.” She murmurs breathily into my ear, her qi finally piercing my aura to brush against my skin directly. 

Pierce isn’t a good word. It’s more like…our auras have  _ meshed _ together. I feel…bizarrely full, somehow. I’m not even sure how to describe it. Spiritually filled? It’s such a strange feeling.

I’m also spiritually close enough to Sayaka to get a really good feel for her qi, but I try not to look too closely. It feels like an invasion of privacy. Instead, I focus as hard as I can on her instructions.

“Now…call your Wind to you.”

Slowly, subtly, I manipulate my qi, slowly activating the technique. 

“Hmm…Ah, there.”

Deftly, she begins manipulating the qi, using our combined auras as a medium. Within a few moments, I can feel a passable imitation of my technique starting to weigh me down, but it feels far more…refined. 

“Think you can do that on your own?” 

“After having  _ felt _ the qi myself…yes, I think so. I’m not used to using my aura as a medium, but what you did felt easier than what I’ve been doing.”

“That’s because it is.” She says, satisfaction in her voice. “Well, that’s as much as I can help you with.” 

“So can I get dressed now?”

“Yep.” 

I get dressed. Lazily, the blunette does the same. 

“…Hey, Sayaka?”

“Yes?”

“…Why are you doing all of this for me?”

She leans over and semi-mockingly pats my head. “It’s not like I don’t get anything out of it. You’re a good friend too, Yuki, so I really don’t mind helping you out. Though I’m taking that favor. That’s mine.”

“…A good friend, huh?” I echo.

She shrugs. “I think so.”

In the end, that’s all there is to it. After trading a few other words, I leave her house, heading back home.

_ A good friend? Why does she think that? _

Frustratingly, I’ve left once again with more questions than answers. At least I’m walking away with a refined technique under my belt, and some interesting things to experiment with for the future.

  
  



	44. (3.3.7) Dissonance, Part 7

#  **3.3.7 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Dissonance, Part 7**

“Yuki!!” 

“Good evening. I’ll take a shower and get out of your way. Are you using the basement? I was planning on training, but I can do it elsewhere.”

“…You need to sleep.” She ignores my words completely, staring directly into my eyes. 

“What?” 

“Sleep. It’s been nearly thirty-six hours since you’ve last slept. That’s far too long.” 

“Haven’t we been over this?” I ask. “I don’t need to…although I’ll probably sleep once a week to alleviate the strain on my qi.” 

A frown mars her face. “That’s really…” 

But again, she can’t protest. After all, if she was able to do what I could, she’d definitely be doing the same thing. Even despite that disadvantage, she’s still overworking her body to the point that she needs frequent healing from me.

Unsealing a ration bar from my hip, I take a bite of it. “Well, if you aren’t using the basement, I’ll—“ 

Qi washes over me as Setsuna stomps her foot on the ground, triggering a set of seals. Abruptly, the room is sealed off by a glowing pink barrier.

“…What are you doing?” 

“I won’t let you leave this room until you sleep, Yuki.” She points at the couch. 

“…Seriously?” 

“Seriously.” 

It only takes a glance for me to understand that she’s deadly serious about this.

Shaking my head, I walk to the pink barrier, sealing away my ration bar for later. “And how long do you think you can hold this for?”

“…Four hours. Long enough to convince you to just sleep instead of wasting both of our nights.”

I stare at her defiant face, mildly annoyed. Can’t she see that I really just don’t need to sleep? As the person who is perhaps most familiar with my powers, she of all people ought to know. Why is she doing this?

Is there a way out of this beyond knocking her out, or simply shattering the barrier? Both would inflict harm on her, so an alternative…

That offhand comment from Setsuna during Mari’s examination comes back to me.

_ Decryption. By analyzing her qi frequency, he can adjust his aura to create a blind spot in her pulse and phase through it. It’s the same way you use to walk through a qi barrier, actually. _

Qi frequency, huh…? Well, if there’s one thing I’m familiar with, it’s the feeling of Setsuna’s aura. I just have to figure this out.

It’s a good thing I just had someone demonstrate to me how to manipulate my aura. 

Qi frequency...

Oh, I’m a fool. I know that concept by an entirely different name — qi  _ signature. _ The unique imprint of another’s qi.

And I have examples of Setsuna’s qi right on top of me — all the seals she’s painted on me, and on my equipment.

“…Turn the seals off, Setsuna.” I warn her, pressing my hand against the barrier.

“Or what?” She whispers softly. 

I smile sadly. “I’m not going to hurt you…but I’m not going to let you hold me here, either.” 

She stares steadily at me. “Won’t you listen, Yuki?” 

I return her stare. “Your words have no conviction. You’d do the same thing I am, if our positions were reversed.”

“I would, but…I want  _ better _ for you, Yuki.”

“I told you, this doesn’t cause any harm to me.” 

She averts her gaze, biting her lip fiercely enough to draw blood. It’s obvious that she disagrees, but for some reason, she refuses to voice  _ why. _

“Well…I told you.” I say, sighing as I turn to the barrier in front of me. Sinking into the Veil, I concentrate. 

**Freeze.**

It’s a procedure I’ve never done before, but I still perform it with ease, my hand pulsing a bolt of qi into the glowing wall. 

Setsuna flinches as the barrier freezes solid, frost coating the whole thing. I stare speculatively at the Ice, then step forward — and  _ through _ . 

_ Wait…what did I just…? _

Behind me, the barrier reasserts itself, having failed to hold me back.

“You just — what…?”

_ That wasn’t decryption. That was something else entirely, wasn’t it? I definitely didn’t analyze her qi at all. No, I…phased through her barrier.  _

_ No. I phased through my  _ **_Ice._ ** _ I didn’t know that was possible. _

But I’m supposed to be proving a point.

“I’ll see you later tonight, Setsuna.” 

She doesn’t try to stop me as I exit the house. 

…

I return at three in the morning, exhausted both physically and spiritually. 

This time, Setsuna isn’t there to greet me. Unsurprising — I’ve probably made her seriously angry with that stunt of mine. 

Frowning, I head to the bathroom to clean up. It doesn’t take much time. After, I head over to the bedroom, where Setsuna is laying in bed.

Not asleep, though. She’s just staring silently at the ceiling. When I take a step into the room, her eyes flicker towards me for a moment before she goes back to ignoring me.

I hesitate, unsure how to respond to this. Annoyance, sadness — both of these I could have responded to. She’s never really been mad with me, but I’ve seen her sad a handful of times. But this cold anger I sense from her…that, I’m not sure how to handle. It seems that I’ve truly made her upset. 

For perhaps the first time in the years I’ve known her, a gap has formed between the two of us, one I don’t know how to bridge. Is the only answer to submit to her, with reasoning I don’t even understand? Moreover, is submitting something I can afford to do? Why doesn’t she understand? She’s even admitted to being the type of person that would do the same that I am, in my circumstances…and she’s trying to do it herself!

So what’s her problem? 

“How can you expect me to change, when you yourself don’t do the same…?” I whisper quietly.

She turns away from me.

“I told you already. I want better for you.” 

I shake my head. 

“That isn’t your choice to make.”

_ And I can’t stand aside and watch you kill yourself. Not without being strong enough to support you. You could do so much, Setsuna…and I need to be strong enough to be your shield. That’s always been my role, and it’s one I’ll gladly accept. _

“…I know.”

“Then don’t stop me.” 

“…Fine.” There’s a strange sense of hopelessness to her voice as she curls in on herself. 

I hesitate for a few seconds, but when she says nothing further, I take it as permission to leave.

The Ice creeps further. 

…

At seven, she silently joins me in the living room, where I juggle cooking with aspect shifting while under first-level reinforcement. It’s  _ obscenely  _ challenging, more-so since I’m multitasking, but very good practice nonetheless. 

She occupies her time with seal-study, and the only words that come out of her mouth are a muttered thanks when I offer her breakfast. 

I deliver Mari’s portion to her without fuss — she’s delighted at the return of actual cooking instead of mostly leftovers — then consume my portion, still grinding my finer qi control.

…

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, the inevitable conclusion of Setsuna’s insane training regiment. I just hadn’t thought it would happen so soon. 

“Huh. I’d forgotten this could be a problem with you.” Katsuo says contemplatively. In front of him, coughing violently with an apparent fever, rests Setsuna. 

_ Sick. _

Mundane sickness is something ninja don’t suffer from. The resilience and natural life-boosting properties of qi ensure that most mundane sicknesses never grab hold. Certainly, we aren’t impervious to disease, but we’re certainly very resistant to them. I’ve never been sick before, but I’m familiar with the concept. 

_ That’s right, non-Users have to worry about immune systems and...viruses, isn’t it? _

I can’t remember who first came up with the knowledge of microorganisms — medical history has never been remotely of interest to me — but I am aware of the very basics of the topic. 

“Yuki, escort her home and monitor her. The fever needs to run its course, but take care to ensure nothing abnormal occurs. If her symptoms worsen, take her to the hospital.” 

The hospital?

“Understood, sir. Alright, Setsuna. Up you go.”

“Nn…no, I  _ won’t _ —“ As I reach down to help her up, she shoves me with enough force to send me stumbling, catching me by surprise—

Katsuo moves behind her with incredible speed and jabs at the back of her head, knocking her instantly unconscious with a light tap. She collapses into my arms.

“Right. You may need to restrain her. Be gentle about it, though.” 

“…Got it.” 

…

It takes six hours for her to wake up, during which time I’ve laid her down on the bed, and have been dutifully applying my Ice to cool her down. In the meantime, I continue practicing my earlier qi exercise, finding it to be very good practice.

When she finally awakens, it’s so sudden that I nearly miss it.  _ Nearly. _

“Good evening, Setsuna.” I say evenly. 

She stares at me, clearly evaluating her situation. 

“In case you’ve forgotten, you’re sick. You collapsed during training. Seemed to be mildly delusional, too. As your medical superior, I’m prescribing you at least thirty-six hours of bed rest. I trust that I don’t need to restrain you or render you unconscious to ensure that you follow these rules?” 

Six hours. I’ve had six hours to go through my thoughts over the entire matter, and ultimately decided…strange tension or not, I need to be firm about this. I knew she wouldn’t respond to a direct method well, and had decided to respect her feelings and not manipulate her.

That was before she proved unable to manage herself. Now, whether she likes it or not, I’ll be firm about it. And I’ll force her, if I must.

Genuine anger flashes through her eyes. 

“I’m not a child, Yuki. And I’m not sick enough to be incapable of basic study.” 

“You’re  _ clearly _ not capable of managing yourself.” I reply sharply. “This sickness of yours…even with your low levels of qi, had you been sleeping and resting properly, you wouldn’t have gotten sick.” 

“You’re the  _ last _ person to lecture me about that.” 

_ She’s incredibly hostile right now. Is this a result of last night? _

“I’ve already explained how our positions are different. And it’s quite evident, based on the circumstances.”

“This isn’t your choice to make.”

“Unlike you, Setsuna, I’m perfectly willing to  _ make _ you take a break.” 

She holds her hand up, qi flickering in her palm. The pale blue of a print. There’s only one thing she could be threatening me with — and the thought makes me clench my fists. 

“If you explode anything, I will knock you out and drop you off in the hospital.” I snarl. 

She flinches, jumping slightly as if I’ve burned her. It’s then that I realize that the temperature of the room has sharply dropped. Shocked, I immediately reassert control over myself, throwing off any trace of the Veil. 

I…lost control? 

What...? Why did I lose control? That’s never, EVER happened before — and with good reason. Revealing my Ice nature would mean death.

“I’m...I’m sorry…I don’t know…I don’t know what I was thinking…” She rushes out, sounding panicked. 

“It’s okay.” I brush it off, more concerned with my sudden inability to control myself. This new issue demands my attention — I can’t go around interacting with people not in-the-know until I know I have it under control. It could quite literally have me killed. 

“I’m going to go.” I say, turning away. “Please…take care of yourself.”

“Where…where are you going?” She asks, more than a hint of fear in her voice.

“To Hikaru. I don’t know what just happened…but I need to fix it  _ now _ . I’m sorry, Setsuna, but we’ll need to talk about this later. Whatever  _ this _ was.” 

“…I…I understand.” She averts her gaze. “Go, then.” 

Nodding, I turn away and suppress my aura as deeply as I can to ensure that nothing can escape before exiting the house and racing to Hikaru’s as fast as I can.

…

Thankfully, she’s home. It isn’t long before she’s got me on the couch, shirt off and with analytical qi highlighting her hands. 

“That’s quite the unexpected side effect…” Hikaru says contemplatively, running a glowing blue hand over me once more to confirm her results.

“I know. What can we do to solve it?” I’m less impressed by the theoretical questions this problem raises, wanting a solution instead. 

After running through all of my symptoms with Hikaru — a weakening of my Ice aberration, actual loss of control, apparent mood swings — and pinpointing a timeline for all of this, the cause became rather obvious. 

Apparently, Hikaru injecting me with some of her blood and Etheria in our earlier rituals disrupted my own control over my aberration. As I’d thought before, this sort of substance is more potent than natural energy due to the Psychia being far more defined. As a result, I can only absorb a little at a time before it starts displacing  _ my  _ own Psychia.

Obviously, we’d used more than I could handle. My personality shouldn’t be permanently affected, but my nature — that of Ice — has been somewhat weakened. Lowered control means a weaker aberration and the chance that I’ll lose my control over it again. The consequences of that could be fatal…via execution. 

Looks like those power-up rituals had some nasty side-effects after all. Fuck. 

“Regain control, of course.” 

It takes everything in my power to avoid saying something like  _ wow, I wouldn’t have thought of that. _

“You’re well acquainted with meditation now, what with you having developed a mindscape. When was the last time you’ve visited it?” 

“A bit over two weeks.”

“Meditate now, then. Figure out what’s going on with you.” 

At her command, I take a seat on the chair and relax, closing my eyes. 

It takes little effort to access the first level. Mentally, I picture it as a vast expanse of black, starry streams of qi weaving around my Spiritual Core. Covering it is a translucent sphere, representing my Veil. I float up to it and phase through effortlessly. 

Once inside, the space seamlessly shifts into another environment.

_ Ah. So that was the problem. _

If the area outside my Veil is space, then this area is earth, a frozen expanse that I can navigate with perfect ease. But mixed with the falling snowflakes are streams of glowing pink dust. A helpful contaminant, but a contaminant nonetheless. And it’s spread absolutely everywhere. Damn it. Every time I injured myself, pushed myself…the qi must have spread, integrating with myself…

_ What to do…? _

I let myself float away and out of my world, and return to consciousness. The whole procedure only took five seconds, far faster than it used to be. 

I describe as best as I can the sight I’ve seen to Hikaru.

“I see.” She says contemplatively. “…It’s as I thought, then — the spiritual component of the Etheria I injected you with is overwhelming your own. It’s just a little bit, but it’s enough to disrupt your perfect control.” 

“Tch. What do we do about it, then?” 

“Well…I have no idea.” She admits. “Obviously, this sort of thing isn’t well-documented. We need to separate the two different sources, so to speak. The problem is that, well…they’ve mixed very thoroughly, from your description and my scans.”

“Can’t I just use qi control to separate it?”

“You can, yes. How much experience do you have wielding my qi?” She asks, amused.

...I see her point. 

“We do have one major advantage.” 

“Which is?”

“Your regeneration, of course. If you tear apart your own nerves, at least you’ll be able to grow them back.” 

I wince at the thought, but she’s certainly not wrong. 

“Well…let’s experiment, then…”

Once more, I close my eyes and return to my mindscape, bypassing my Veil and entering the main space.

_ I am the master of my own mind. _

Flexing my will, I send a burst of qi rippling through the area. Okay, so I can affect my mindscape. 

_ Psychia…a transcription of your imagination and expectation. Intent, personality, force of will.  _

_ In my mind, there is no physicality. Everything is intangible, merely depicted in a way that my brain can comprehend. So therefore, if I focus on what I want to achieve— _

**Break!**

With a roar of exertion, I lash out with my will, calling together all of my power. The frozen expanse shatters, the glittering particles being drawn in towards me — then  _ into  _ me — in a rush. Suddenly, I feel surrounded by what seems like a limitless amount of sheer power, but yet the weight doesn’t feel especially intimidating.

No, this power, my Ice aberration…it feels familiar. Welcoming, even, in a certain sense. 

The pink trails of qi remain suspended in the void, before suddenly being gathered into a ball without any input on my part.

_ Ah, Hikaru. _

Now that I’m looking for it, I can feel her warm, familiar presence. Hikaru’s presence. The pink ball drifts towards me before pausing in front of me, as if waiting for me to take hold of it.

I do so. 

I can feel the difference instantly — this time, there won’t be any corrosion of control. The little power she’s offered to me submits fully to me.

But it doesn’t stop there — unexpectedly, more power floods into me, burning through my body. But now, I have at least some level of control over it, and gather it all to me.

I’ve done it! This rush of power…is undoubtedly comparable to, but definitely not the equal of, Hikaru’s regenerative aberration! And I’ve properly assimilated it into my own, so I won’t need to deal with any more control issues. 

Even as more energy is shoved into me, I gather my determination once more and release my stored Ice energy, my frozen landscape reasserting itself once more. But this time, it’s different — the Ice has…softened, somewhat. Rather than the rough, jagged hardness it used to be, snow has replaced the falling Ice particles and the landscape feels a little more rounded.

And, here and there, crystal-blue flowers sprout out of the ground. This…must be the influence of the power I’ve absorbed.

Sensing that the earth is still malleable, I drift over to a certain set of blackened flowers, representing a series of memories I never wish to return to, and shove it deep, deep inside. 

_ Good. The past should stay where it belongs. _

Satisfied, I retreat from my mindscape and am immediately flooded with the sound of Hikaru’s panicked shouting.

“Yuki! Wake up, damn it!” 

“What?” I ask, startled. “What’s going on?” 

The healer sighs, but her relief quickly turn to anger.

“You almost died.” Hikaru says flatly.

“I…what?”

_ “You collapsed your Spiritual Core! You fucking idiot!”  _

“…Wait, what?!” 

“I don’t know what you did in there, but don’t do it again! You’re so damn lucky that your Ice Nature lets you reform it! Your body  _ died _ . If I hadn’t been here, you  _ would _ have died permanently…for real.” 

I…collapsed my Spiritual Core? I didn’t even know that was possible! Now that I think about it, though, I know exactly  _ when _ I did — when I shattered my mindscape.

In hindsight, why the hell did I ever think that was a good idea? The mindscape is just a visualization of the Spiritual Core, and the avatar a construct that represents me. Destroying the former…was a ridiculous idea. 

I really am lucky, then. That was an incredibly stupid mistake. I would have thought it would have been far harder to maim yourself like that, but…I didn’t know, did I?

_ My mind is a scary place… _

Perhaps, if my Ice Nature allowed me to reform my Core easily, maybe it also allowed me to break it easily…? 

_ After all, the same thing that lets me reform it is what lets me regenerate.  _

A thought occurs to me. 

_ If I can break and reform my Core…can I adapt my own affinity…?  _

I take one look at Hikaru’s angry face and decide to bring that up later. Much later. Maybe in a few months. I’ve just dodged death by a hair, after all. And all in—

_ Oh. It’s been three hours already? Did she put me into a trance, again? Or did all of that mind stuff I did take longer than I thought? Or both? _

After promising her that I’ll come by regularly for checkups, I depart back home, meaning to check on Setsuna.

…

…

…

I stare silently at the note that’s been left on the bed.

_ Dear Yuki,  _

_ I didn’t want to trouble you more than I have already, so I’ve checked into the hospital. They’ll take care of me there, so you won’t have to worry about me and you can focus on your training.  _

_ Once I heal up, I’ll start looking into my own living accommodations, too. I’ve taken advantage of your hospitality for far too long, after all. You don’t need to worry about my things — I’ll come and collect them as soon as I’m able.  _

_ Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me. I’ll do my best to repay you once I have the means to.  _

_ Sincerely, _

_ Setsuna. _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops.


	45. (3.3.8) Dissonance, Part 8

#  **3.3.8 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Dissonance, Part 8**

“Ah, Yuki. It’s quite the late hour for you, isn’t it?”

“Indeed. Actually, I was just here to check on one of the patients. A friend of mine, you see.” 

“Oh? Sure thing. Could you provide some details?”

“Mm…petite, black-haired girl. Ninja, but with a really weak aura, goes by the name of Setsuna. Should have checked in within the last…oh, three hours tops? Shouldn’t have anything more than simple mundane sickness.” 

“Yep, she checked in…about an hour and a half ago? Symptoms weren’t too bad, although she’d clearly aggravated them by making the trip here. We put her up in one of our vacant rooms, and the nurses know to check up on her every once in a while. Wasn’t labeled a priority for obvious reasons, though.”

“That damn fool…well, if all goes well, I should be taking her back with me. Sorry about this mess.”

“No problem. And…if it doesn’t go well?”

“I’ll try to limit damage to the premises.”

“Right. Well, if you do break something, I’ll be taking it out of your next paycheck, you hear?” 

“Of course. Thanks again, Kirigaya.” 

…

The South hospital complex is comprised of a half-dozen buildings, organized mostly by what precisely they’re handled to equip. 

Room 6142. 

_Non-Users Complex, Floor One, Room Forty-Two._

Ironically, this building is perhaps the one in the best condition. As a great deal of the wealth in Alune is concentrated around the civilians, and this being the ward they would go to, it’s unsurprising that they are…incentivized to donate healthily to the facility. 

Making my way through the tiled stone halls — no Constructor work here, no thank you — I stop outside of the room that Setsuna has been assigned to.

What on earth will I even say to her? 

Her note basically summed down to this:

_Don’t worry about me anymore._

What can I possibly say to such a declaration when I _don’t even understand why she wants that?!_

It was made very clear to me that she’s still quite bitter about my resolution to train more, the same way she is. What I still don’t understand is why. 

…I can’t help but suspect that, should I fail to understand her in the following conversation, irreparable damage will be done to our relationship.

And that…that more than anything terrifies me. 

I’ve been upset with Setsuna, certainly, but never have I wanted her to leave my life. Even at the moment I lost my temper and my control, when Setsuna had threatened to drop an explosive in my face — I’d still not been so mad that I’d wanted her to leave forever.

If she leaves like this, our relationship will be permanently changed, and not for the better. Our team synergy would likely be damaged, if not outright destroyed. 

…Then we’d be separated. Our team would be broken up. Most likely, Mari would move up, and Setsuna would be pulled backwards. 

I don’t want to lose what I have. 

I don’t want to lose my team, the people I’ve spent over three months with, training and fighting together. And I don’t want to lose Setsuna, my partner, my roommate, my…

_No more hesitation._

“Excuse me, I’m coming in.” I say politely, and step inside. Setsuna, dressed in a loose hospital gown, glances at me strangely from her position on the hospital bed. The uncertainty in her gaze, though, quickly firms to something completely indecipherable.

“I’m surprised you came.” She says quietly.

I flinch.

“…Why?” 

“Would’ve thought you had some training to do…or something.” 

“Setsuna, I would—“ I sharply cut myself off, eyes wide.

_It was so fucking obvious. I’m a fool for missing it._

_‘I would never prioritize training over you.’_

Isn’t that what I’ve been **doing?** Gods, I’m such a fool. No wonder she thinks she’s a burden, that I don’t care about her. Because it’s what I’ve been treating her as.

Put into this context, her decisions make sense. 

The silence drags on.

“…Would you like me to leave, Setsuna?” I finally whisper.

A throwing knife thuds into the wall next to my head. I stare silently at Setsuna’s outstretched hand, then at the girl, whose stormy eyes stare unwaveringly into mine.

“All I’ve wanted you to do is _stay_ , Yuki. I just want you to stay…but I won’t get in your way, either. That’s not fair to you. Not after everything you’ve done for me.” 

“Setsuna, I don’t care if you get in my way…well, I do, but not enough that I’d rather you just vanish!”

“But _I_ care, Yuki! I’m _not_ going to be the reason you get held back!” 

I snarl, stepping forward until we’re eye to eye. “Setsuna, do you know _why_ I want to be a ninja?”

“Why?” 

This is a question I’ve contemplated on and off. What is my purpose? 

_I’ll fight to protect them until the day I die. You could say that I live through the people I care about the most._

Transitioning from someone who had been completely purposeless, who had become a ninja simply because I hadn’t had any other reason to live, to someone who could live to shield others. That’s how I’ve evolved over the years. 

“I am a ninja to protect the people I care about. And you, Setsuna, are at the _very_ top of my list.” 

She glances away momentarily. “I know…but that’s _wrong,_ Yuki.” 

I blink. “In what way?”

“Who will protect you if you’re so concerned about others?” 

Her words elicit a snort out of me. “Please. There’s only one person I’d trade my life for. It isn’t like I’d die for just anyone.”

Then I think of my Blood Vow. “Well, two, but that sort of detracts from the point I’m trying to make, doesn’t it?”

She doesn’t seem to find my clarification particularly funny. “That’s…one too many. You can’t do anything about your Vow, but…” 

I stare at her. “Then take responsibility for me, if that’s what you’re truly so worried about.”

She winces. “If you want to live…don’t depend on me.” 

_What?_

One of the things Setsuna has pride in is her seals, her ninja ability, _despite_ being a psuedo-User. The words coming out of her mouth simply don’t match with what I know to be true of her.

“Do you really mean that?” I murmur. 

She doesn’t avert her gaze. 

I shake my head. “Fine. Alright. That doesn’t change anything.” 

Her eyes widen. “That — Yuki, you _know_ I just told you—“ 

“That I’m by myself. I accept that.” 

“…You accept that?” She asks numbly.

“Yes.” 

_So you think she’s cute, she’s the most important person in your life, and you want to be with her forever. How much more do you need before you decide you do love her?_

Perhaps this, then…this is how I can ‘love’ her. 

“But Yuki—“ 

_Is it really that simple?_

“I’ll protect you. That’s all there is to it.” 

Setsuna shakes her head. 

“You’re a fool.” 

I shrug. 

“Don’t care.” Reaching to the side of me, I pull the knife from the wall and hold it loosely at my side as I step towards Setsuna. 

“Hey…what do you want, Setsuna? I’ve told you what I want, but I haven’t asked you yet, have I? What is it you want, Setsuna?” 

She averts her gaze from me.

“Why are you a ninja? What do you want out of it? What do you want your future to be?” 

Her hands clench into fists. 

“…Stop, please.” 

I fall silent at her plea. And it’s just that — a request. Gone is the anger, the hostility, the irritation, and left behind is nothing more than a tired, sick girl.

“…You don’t deserve to go through this. To put all that effort into someone who won’t do the same for you. That’s not what partners do for each other.” 

I tilt my head. “Mmm…I disagree.” 

“Yuki, at its very core partners—“ 

“—are just people who do things together as equals.” I interrupt. “You may not realize it, but what I receive from you is something I consider just as valuable as whatever I may do for you.” 

“…Something as valuable as your dedication to me? Your constant work to grow stronger to protect me? Someone who doesn’t deserve _anything_ like that? Tell me, Yuki, what in the _hell_ do I do for you—“ 

“You give me a reason to fight, Setsuna.” I say softly. “And more than that…” 

I’ve been thinking about it for a while, actually. Why haven’t I fallen into the typical patterns of other Ice Users, that of being a sociopath? 

_“Recently, a certain someone has been able to elicit emotional responses that I rarely feel — embarrassment, mostly, but a little bit of…affection, I guess. These responses are fairly regular. As a result, the last few days have been a lot more memorable and…interesting…than most of my entire life.”_

It’s obvious in hindsight, the single point of my life that changed everything. 

Challenging Sayaka enough to be a meaningful rival to her. Being the reason I ever went to the library at that particular time, causing a chance encounter with Hikaru. Being the other half of the utility pair designed to work with Mari. 

“You are the reason I exist as I am.” I place my free hand over my heart. “Without you, I don’t think I’d be anywhere like the person I am now.” 

Setsuna’s eyes grow wide. 

“I owe you _everything_ , Setsuna. Even if you reject the concept of us being partners…I would still not hesitate to lay down my life for you. Even if you reject _me_ …I’d feel the same way. Because…you are the only reason I’m alive.”

“I’m truly sorry for everything I’ve put _you_ through. I really didn’t mean to make you feel like I was abandoning you. You see…I’m still learning how to be a _human_. But it’s thanks to you that I’m still able to feel this way at all.” 

“So I ask of you, Setsuna, the reason for my existence. _What do you want?_ ”

She flinches. “Please…don’t ask that of me.” She whispers, her eyes slightly misty. 

“Why not?” I reply, equally soft.

She opens her mouth to say something, but swallows it down without letting it slip past. 

“I…Yuki…you really, truly…don’t understand what you’re saying to me…” She pulls her legs up, curling into a ball. 

I sigh.

“Perhaps you haven’t decided what you want yet, and that’s fine. It certainly took me long enough. But—“ I set the knife onto the desk next to her bed, “When you do figure it out…please know that I’ll support you, no matter what.”

“…Thank you, Yuki…” She mumbles, still averting her gaze.

I’m not sure what to make of her sudden depression, but it seems to be better than the cold anger of before. 

“I…Setsuna, if it is okay with you…I’d like to take you home.” 

She smiles a sad smile, glancing at me. “Home? Alune _is_ my…”

The petite sealer trails off as I silently pull out something from my pocket and hold it up to the dim light of the lamp. Her letter.

Her _tear-stained_ letter. 

“Please, Setsuna…come home.” 

…

“Are you sure about this…?” She mumbles as I quietly open the door, letting both of us in. 

“For the seventh time… _yes_ , Setsuna.” 

We clean ourselves quickly and find ourselves in bed shortly after, my arm wrapped around her.

“You’re really—“

“ _Yes._ ”

Her hands curl into my shirt as she buries her face into my chest. Quietly, pressing herself into me, she cries herself to sleep. 

Unlike the last time, though, I can tell that the tears she cries aren’t one of sorrow. 

_No…these are tears of relief._

Soon enough, I fall into a deep sleep, holding tightly to the one I care about most.


	46. (3.3.9) Dissonance, Closing

#  **3.3.9 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Dissonance, Closing (Mari’s POV)**

“Hm.”

This is the third time I’ve visited those two kids, and three times in a row, that cat’s been stuck in the tree. 

“Hey, you guys aren’t putting him up there on purpose, right?” I ask gently.

They shake their heads. I hadn’t thought so, but it was worth checking. 

Well…if he’s going up there by himself, then I’ve just gotta figure out  _ why _ , right? __

Scaling the tree is easy — incidentally, it scares the cat right back down, making my job easier. But I’m much more curious this time, reinforcing my eyes, ears, and nose, hunting for something out of the ordinary…

It takes a while, but just as I’m about to give up, I do detect a hint of something strange. It’s an unfamiliar smell, but one that stands out enough amongst the nature scents to demand investigation. 

Making my way a little bit higher — only perhaps five meters or so off the ground — I find what had been interesting the cat.

“Oh dear.” 

Nestled into a divot in the wood is a small bag. More importantly, the smell…without having ever seen or smelled the substance before, I know exactly what this is.

_ Drugs. _

_ Well, there’s the ‘something concrete’ we need, then… _

  
  



	47. (3.4.1) Encroaching Shadows, Part 1

#  **3.4.1 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Consequence, Part 1**

Rose Garden Operation 321

_ 4S:2S _

_ Assigned: 4S, *7S | 1H  _

_ Leader: Mari _

_ Objective: Locate the source of the drugs found at the Rose Garden Park in the South sector of the city. If possible, eliminate or apprehend any criminal elements identified in relation to the drugs. If necessary, retreat for backup.  _

“I can’t believe you actually got the mission for this.” I say numbly. “Or that there was a mission in the first place.” 

“Who do you think found the drugs?” Mari asks rhetorically. “After that, it was a piece of cake to get it assigned to me.” 

“There’s so little information.” I mutter. 

“Well, it is a scout mission in our own village.” She points out. “Half of it is in the information-gathering we’re supposed to do. Also, there’s no timeline for this mission. I asked. It’s an indefinite mission, with no penalty for failure. It isn’t super serious, after all.”

“I guess it’d be easier to just run through it now, and see what we can find today?” I offer. 

Since Mari has no urgent life goals and I’m not too pressed for time regarding the Fourth Exam — even if I do really need to grow stronger — it seems that she didn’t feel bad at all requesting me as a teammate. Well, I don’t really mind. She’d be totally helpless without the utility I bring to the table anyways, and I have a personal stake in this. 

_ It’s not like I can’t train while I run this mission. The risk should be minimal.  _

“So it’s just us two, then?” I confirm.

“Yup.”

Setsuna’s back to training with Katsuo. However, she spends substantially less time doing it — perhaps a total of sixteen hours a day. It’s still a lot, but leaves plenty of time for us to properly interact. I, too, have returned to a more normal schedule. 

_ I can’t believe it’s only been a week since that argument. Although, things have managed to return to our normal, for the most part. That’s good, isn’t it? _

Mostly normal, anyways. Because now I’ve been made aware of a certain something about Setsuna. 

For some reason, a reason I can’t ascertain…there’s some part of Setsuna that really,  _ really _ hates herself.

_ If you want to live…don’t depend on me. _

_ Someone who doesn’t deserve anything like that? Tell me, Yuki, what in the hell do I do for you? _

_ Please…don’t ask that of me. _

_ Yuki…you really, truly…don’t understand what you’re saying to me… _

_ Are you sure about this…? _

It’s terrible that I hadn’t noticed before this. Then again, a conversation quite like this has never popped up before, and she never gave the impression of someone who’d been hiding such a high level of self-doubt. 

For the longest time, I’ve assumed that she ran under the same attitude that I do — raw, unflinching realism. We can do it or we can’t… _ yet. _ Our inability to defeat Mari, for example, was a problem, but one we can overcome. Never was there  _ doubt _ that we would improve. 

So something like her self-hatred…it doesn’t match what she’s displayed before. Yet the emotions she demonstrated that night were raw enough for me to discern as undeniably truth.

_ So…why? _

I strongly suspect the answer lies in her past. It’s up to her, however, whether or not she chooses to share those details with me. I’m unwilling to pry into what is undoubtedly a very sensitive topic. 

“You’ve been growing a lot stronger recently.” Mari asks, a note of curiosity in her voice.

“Hm?”

“Seems like you’re just getting stronger and stronger every day.”

“What makes you say that?” I glance at her. Her eyes analytically flick up and down my body.

“I’m not too sure…but you feel stronger. Yes, that’s definitely it.” She says, gaining confidence. “You just seem…different.” 

I blink. 

“…Do you mean my aura?” I ask. Since I’m using the perfected Wind Restriction technique, which I’ve privately named  _ Heavy Wind _ , I’m not suppressing my qi. And I’ve sparred with her recently enough for her to have a good idea of my typical aura.

_ Perhaps she’s detecting the effects of my changed Mindscape. I still haven’t properly explored what that’s done to me, even though I know I’m stronger as a result.  _

She nods. “Yes, that, and your physical abilities. A week ago, you definitely wouldn’t have been able to keep up with me in any way, but…you were able to fight me to a standstill. True, I didn’t know how to use a sword, and neither of us could use qi, but…” 

“Eh, what I’m trying to say is…good job, captain.” She says, eyes glittering with something like pride. “I’m looking forward to you getting strong enough to be a real challenge.” 

“Thanks, I think?”

She grins, before her face grows serious. “Anyways, where should we start with our mission? The first move is obviously to explore the park, but…”

“Did you move the drugs?” I ask intently. 

She blinks. “Yes, I needed the proof, and they could run an analysis on it—“ 

“…Damn. Alright.”

“You were thinking of using it as bait, weren’t you?” 

“Of course. Well, we can still stake it out. It’s only been…what, a day? Longer?” 

“I’d guess at…well, it’s eight-thirty now, so…” Mari searches her memory. “Eighteen hours.” 

“Right. Whoever was intended to be the recipient of those drugs, assuming there is one, might not know they’re missing yet. I need to know how far up this goes.” I frown. “We need information. But before that, an idea…” 

…

“Hey, Setsuna, could you write up a seal for me? I was thinking something like…”

...

“Alright, the seal’s set.” Mari jogs back to me. “What’s it do?” 

I shrug. “If anyone happens to mess with it, we’ll know. And so will they.” 

I had Mari quickly and quietly sneak over to where’d she found the drugs. Once there, she’d affixed the seal tag that Setsuna had written up with a bit of wire. 

“Why, are we not staking it out?” She asks curiously.

“We are, but we need to check something first. On the off chance that the person in question hits the spot while we’re gone, I don’t want to miss it.” 

“I see…where are we checking, then?”

“Earlier, Mirai mentioned that her parents seemed sadder than usual. It could be nothing, but…”

“It’s a strange connection nonetheless, isn’t it? No matter how tangential.” 

“Precisely. Since we have no other lead anyways, we may as well explore it.” 

“Right. So…uh, where do they live?” 

I wince. “That’s…the hard part.”

…

It actually isn’t too bad. Mari flashes her ninja identification card (granted at the fourth-star level and above) at the Police Office and gets access to their files. It turns out that the two children live right down the street of the park. 

“Here we are.” 

The small, one-story house itself is fairly simple. It’s vaguely reminiscent of my own house, with wood being the primary material, although it isn’t the same cookie-cutter design. It’s clearly been built by human hands, and seems to be slightly aged, but in good condition. 

“What do you think?” I ask Mari. “Sneaky or bold?”

She rolls her eyes, steps up to the door, and knocks. 

“Bold it is.”

“Who is it?” A woman’s voice calls out after a few moments, sounding concerned.

“I’m Mari of Alune, with my teammate and team captain, Yuki of Alune. We’d like to talk to you about some strange things that have been going on recently in the area.” Mari smiles. 

“Ninja, huh?” The civilian(?) mutters, so quietly that it’s obvious that we weren’t meant to hear. Good thing I’ve preemptively reinforced my nose and ears, seeking any threats. In particular, I’m listening for metallic sounds that might indicate the presence of a firearm, or mechanical sounds that might indicate the presence of a timed explosive.

But all I can detect are typical scents and sounds. Inside, I can even hear Mirai’s voice, scolding Kitaro for…something. 

“Alright…please, come inside.” She says, opening the door and closing it behind us. Although she tries to affix a polite smile to her face, I can detect clear underlying fatigue and wariness both, with more than a little worry. She seems to be about the age of forty. “Is it something one of my children did? I’ve been telling them not to go outside, but they just won’t listen…” 

“Oh, it’s nothing like that. They aren’t in any trouble. However, we’ve located something that  _ could _ be.” Mari takes the lead easily. “We just want to take care of it to make sure it doesn’t cause any problems for you guys.” 

“Okay, I get it. If it isn’t wrong to ask, could I ask just what this thing you speak of is?” 

“Mrs. Matsushima, do you have any idea at all why we might have found drugs at the Rose Garden Park?”

She flinches. 

_ Well, there’s a clear sign of knowledge, if not outright guilt. _

“I…” She swallows. “No, I haven’t seen or heard anything about that…or anything that could be related—”

“And that’s a lie.” Mari says pleasantly, still smiling gently. “Please make this easier for both of us and avoid lying in this conversation any more.”

Mrs. Matsushima shivers. “I…I haven’t…” 

“I think we have a common goal, don’t we?” I interrupt. “We’d like to protect Kitaro and Mirai from whoever is passing these around. The two were coming within mere meters of it every time they went into the park. Depending on the intent of those who planted those drugs there, as well as their very questionable sanity...well, it’s in your best interest as a mother to protect them, isn’t it?” 

Mari visibly winces.

“You don’t understand…they’ll kill us if I say anything.”

“With all due respect, Mari is a seventh-star ninja. She may not look it—“ The girl in question rolls her eyes, “—But she is, in terms of straight strength, an elite ninja. We  _ will _ protect your family.” 

She looks hesitant.. 

“But you  _ need _ to tell us what it is we have to defend against.”

“…Alright.” She says haltingly. 

“Every three days, a…a patrol goes around some of the houses at night. And they…they demand a tax. If you don’t pay the tax…they hurt you.”

_ Racketeering. _

“Do you have any idea how many houses they hit? How long have they been doing this? Are they armed? What do you know about them? Any information at all would be helpful for identifying them.” 

She nods. “I…I don’t know most of that. But…they  _ are _ armed with guns, and what really scares me, sir, is that they don’t seem to be afraid of ninja at all.”

“It doesn’t really matter if they’re scared of us or not.” I decide. “We’ll take them down either way.”

“Do you know what exactly it is that makes them not afraid of ninja?” Mari asks gently.

The woman shakes her head. “I don’t know. But they threaten us, warn us not to tell anyone…my husband, he…he tried fighting back, but…he’s in the hospital now, and I don’t know how I’ll…tell them.” 

Mari and I glance at each other. “I’ll visit him. I’m a healer, so there may be something I can do that the non-User ninja can’t do for him.” I offer. “Meanwhile…”

“Then who will do the stakeout if I’m protecting her?” Mari asks, not unreasonably. I concentrate.

“A barrier.” I say. “That will allow you to do the stakeout. My own visit shouldn’t take too long, so we can run the stakeout together. The barrier will hold up more than long enough, but…no, too conspicuous.” 

“When is the patrol next scheduled to hit?” Mari asks.

“Tonight.” The mother says.

“It’s about ten right now.” I mutter. “Do they have a normal time?”

“It’s…always been between nine and ten at night.” 

“Right. That’s plenty of time.” I glance at Mari. “Head out and bring Setsuna here. She can set up a barrier, preferably one that anyone in the house can activate at will. That should keep them out and alert any nearby ninja, if they try to force the issue. I can collect information from the father as I heal him, assuming I can do anything on that front, and we can go around getting information from the neighborhood.” 

“Hm...sounds like a good plan. Let’s come back before the late afternoon, then. I wouldn’t want to get caught sneaking in here. That could cause problems.”

“Agreed.”

“Could I...could I visit with you when you go to visit my husband?” The woman asks. “I’d...like to see how he’s doing.”

I contemplate it for a moment, then shake my head. “If you are associated with me in any way, it could bring danger to your family.”

“However,” Mari interjects, “There’s nothing stopping you from visiting after. I know you must be worried about him.”

“I...yes. Thank you.” She smiles, relieved.

I nod. It would be far easier if she simply remained here, removing all risk, but the argument is unlikely to sway her.

“I just need your husband’s hospital location and room, and I’ll handle the rest...”

...

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, you aren’t an emergency contact. Even if you know his name and room, I can’t legally let you in.”

“And he can’t just consent to let me in?” 

“If you really knew him, you would know...the man isn’t in any condition to wake up right now.”

_ I can’t even argue that I’m a ninja. That wouldn’t hold any sway—  _

_ Wait. _

_ I’m a ninja. _

...

The outside windows aren’t even locked. It’s insultingly easy to let myself in, even though the room is on the fourth floor.

“Right, let’s see...Haru Matsushima, right? Emergency contact...Himari Matsushima. And his diagnosis...hm, blunt force trauma breaking several bones, severe head trauma...right, let’s take a look.” 

A quick qi scan later, and...

“Looks like the doctors fixed your bones right up, but that brain isn’t working quite right, is it? You probably won’t wake up ever again, unless...”

...

“Thanks again, Hikaru.”

“Yup. This isn’t something you’re likely to ever be able to handle unless you become a specialist healer, so it’s fine.” 

“Where are you going now?”

“Huh? Oh, I’m just going to visit the other rooms in the hospital.”

...

“I’m so sorry, sir! If I had known you were one of the Blessed...” 

“No problem.” I say instinctively, “Wait. Blessed?”

The receptionist from before nods rapidly. “One of the Angels of the Goddess of Mercy, of course.”

I blink.

“Right. Anyways, don’t you have other things to worry about?” 

The young man shakes his head. “Almost all of our patients are gone. The Goddess swept through our entire hospital, healing all of the injured. Only patients like these, who suffered severe damage...they are the ones still unconscious, but She assured us that, properly cared for, they would heal.”

_ Why can I tell that he capitalized the ‘she’...? _

“Well, I need to ask that you give me some space. I need to ask this man some delicate questions when he wakes up, and I suspect that will come sooner rather than later. So...move.”

“Right, of course sir.” He takes three big steps back.

I point harshly at the door. “Out!”

“As you wish, sir!” He departs hastily, the door closing quickly but gently.

...I can feel the man standing outside the door. 

Whatever. Now...I know for a fact that Hikaru’s healed the man completely, but his body will be disoriented, unable to properly interpret that it has been healed. It’ll figure it out eventually, but that’ll take a while, hours or days I don’t have.

Therefore...

I gather a tiny bit of qi to myself and poke him in the chest with it. His body jumps, shocked by the burst of power, but doesn’t awaken.

“Wake up.” I jab him once more.

“Wake up.”

“Wake up.”

“Wake up!”

It takes seven qi pokes before the man finally stirs. 

“Ugh...” Haru Matsushima groans, but doesn’t seem to be truly awake.

“Wake up.” Poke.

“Wha...hhh...?” Slowly but surely, he opens his eyes, blinking rapidly. I give him a minute to adjust. 

“You’ve just awoken from a two week coma. Your family is safe. You’re in perfect health. Any questions?”

The man doesn’t seem to fully comprehend me, so I patiently wait another minute before repeating my query.

“I...my family, yes...I need to...see them...” Despite his forced unconsciousness, he seems to be in remarkably good shape. A side effect of Hikaru’s regeneration, I imagine.

“Yes, and you will. However, not right now. You’ll put them in danger.” 

“I...danger? You...”

“Yes, you’ll put them in danger. Do you remember how you received your injuries?”

The man visibly concentrates. “I...those...thugs, yes. They wanted money...but too much. Children...would have starved.” 

“So you tried to fight?”

“Y...Yes.”

“What were they armed with?”

“...Guns. Two revolvers, and...a big gun I didn’t recognize. And swords. They...didn’t use those to hit me, just their fists.”

“I see. Do you remember anything about what they look like?” 

He tries, but just doesn’t remember anything of real substance. All that matters is their presumed genders — two male, one female.

“Any names? Any other information?”

Nothing useful on that front, either.

Well, alright. I hadn’t expected too much, coming here, but there had been a possibility...ah, well. It doesn’t matter much, and I’ve indirectly helped a lot of people, I guess. 

“Alright. You’re in perfect condition, but stay here and rest for now. If you’re seen returning, you could cause problems for your family, and you don’t want them at risk, do you? If they kick you out, find an inn or something. This is  _ important.  _ If you don’t listen, it could very well cost the lives of your family.” 

Faced with my force of will, he nods. 

  
Alright. With this being mostly a dead end, I suppose it’s time to go visit another contact that might know something, unlikely as it is.


	48. (3.4.2) Encroaching Shadows, Part 2

#  **3.4.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Encroaching Darkness, Part 2**

“Hey, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Akane Akiyama.” 

The civilian jumps at her desk, clearly startled. No, more than that…fear.

It frankly wasn’t hard at all to find her. A few discreet inquiries, a read-through of the most prominent citizens in a few magazines, under twenty minutes, even with nothing but a vague idea of her status, name, and a physical description. 

_ Frankly, identifying our handler was harder. And we didn’t even have to properly do that. _

“I…I haven’t done anything!” She instantly protests.

_ Good, still scared of me, aren’t you? _

“I don’t particularly care. I’m not here to hurt you, assuming you’re truthful in your answers to the questions I have for you.”

It’s a small office — stone, with a lot of art. There’s also a frankly disgusting amount of gold and silver plating and frames. It isn’t distasteful aesthetically, I suppose, but is a ridiculous expense that contributes nothing to her standard of living.

“What…What are your questions, then?” She flinches as I vault up onto the table, sitting carelessly on top of it. I’m polite enough to not damage the papers that are on top, brushing them away into a pile with a tiny flicker of Wind. I want the fear, but I don’t want it to be mindless. 

“Good, good. Well, no, that’s disgusting, to be frank, but whatever. I’m not going to punish you for past offenses, so long as you don’t do things that warrant my  _ attention _ in the future. Anyways, let’s get to why I’m really here. How deep are your fingers in the criminal underworld?” 

She hesitates for a moment, but answers readily enough. “I…not as much as you might think. All of my business is completely legitimate. It’s just my…personal enjoyment that isn’t. But—“ She hastens to add, as I affix her with a dark glare, “It’s all…everyone involved is consenting.”

“…Nothing to do with theft, drugs, gangs, or anything along those lines?”

She winces. “Street crime? No, that kind of stuff isn’t my style.”

I’m inclined to agree. 

“Got any contacts? People I can…interrogate to find out what’s going on?”

Akiyama considers the question. “W-Well…no. No one I know would be involved in something like that. But…but if you told me what exactly is going on, I might be able to point you to something…?” 

“My teammate found drugs at Rose Garden Park. It may or may not be connected to what appears to be a round of racketeering going on in the nearby neighborhood. Either way, I plan on stamping out both. My mission, you see.”

“A-Ah, I see. Well…in that case…I can have some people keep an eye out at the park and gather information…?”

“…Mm, no. That would cause interference with my own investigations, I think, but I’ll probably take you up on that later for future tasks. Right now, I require the element of secrecy more than some extra hands.” 

“Understood. It does not seem that I have anything to offer in this particular circumstance…although I’ll be sure to contact you if something changes.” 

I nod, suppressing an irritated sigh. “Well, then. I’ll be sure to return if I need anything. And, of course, check on your…activities, as well. Please do try to stay out of trouble.” 

“I…of course. And, wait!” Akiyama reaches into her desk and pulls out an envelope. “I’d prepared this…in case you came here.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“A small stipend. I’m…not trying to bribe you or anything like that, just…trying to be useful.” 

“Right.” I say slowly. “I’ll take that.” A quick probe with my qi shows me that it really is just a mundane envelope, so I take it and seal it. Without another word, I walk out of the office building, badly startling the receptionist. 

_ Her fault for not noticing me sneak in.  _

Well, that was another dead-end. Potentially useful, though…I’ve further cultivated a contact I’d left lying around uselessly for far too long. I hadn’t thought her particularly useful, given that my daily expenses were something that Setsuna and my combined incomes were capable of handling, but as it turns out, I had been wrong.

I’ve been thinking of money as something not particularly useful — convenience, basically. I’d forgotten that money has a different purpose altogether — namely, as an instrument to get things done. 

_ Setting up civilian surveillance, huh? I might even be able to get her to hire other ninja to handle missions as well. There’s a lot of potential there.  _

_ A lot of risk as well. The resources she can bring to bear are tremendous, but if she decides to turn that on me…? Fear is a good deterrent, but only temporarily. I need something long-term. _

Most likely, what I’m looking for is some kind of ritual. I’ll have to ask Hikaru about it…which would involve explaining the whole situation with her. Maybe not, then.

…

It’s about two in the afternoon when I return to the Matsushima household. 

“…Identification array complete…but it needs to be for a civilian, so I’d better…hey Yuki…a thread, then…or maybe an intent-based seal…? But she’s a non-User, so it’d have to be…”

Setsuna’s busy writing on the door, so I silently wave and head deeper inside. 

As it turns out, Mari managed to conscript Setsuna into setting up a seal after all, and Katsuo’s accompanying her to oversee her work. After all, Setsuna hasn’t done anything like this before — a completely custom seal to work on a particularly specific trigger. 

“So what’s the plan so far?” I ask. 

“Well, the way Setsuna’s setting it up, the barrier will be passive until activated by someone who’s tied to the barrier, at which point it’ll kick up. It’ll sustain itself off of the ambient energy, and can be turned on and off as willed.” Mari explains.

“Cool. Sounded like she was having problems of some kind, though?” I ask.

“Yeah, the problem is that she can’t tie the seal to the mother, because she’s a non-User. So anything like a qi trigger is out.”

Hm. That’s a problem, because almost every seal I know has a qi trigger — namely, you input qi to activate the seal. Coming up with something that doesn’t rely on that…well, that would be a specialist’s work.

“She has everything else done. It’s just that one part.”

“Good. That should suffice as a suitable defense for now, assuming everyone stays inside.” I muse. “That’ll leave us free to stake out the drugs…and this house is very close, as well. We’ll have plenty of time to react should something go wrong.” 

“In theory…” Mari mutters. “I still think you should stay here and guard them while I do the stakeout.” 

I shake my head. “If anything, it should be the other way around. Both my stealth and detection abilities are higher than yours.” 

She hesitates. 

“Yuki, you  _ are _ much stronger than you were, I’ll give you that. I’m just…” 

_ “You’re just trying to help me, aren’t you?”  _

_ “Of course. That’s what I’m here for.”  _

I sigh. “Worried about me?” 

She sends me a grateful look. “Yes.” 

I sigh.

“I understand, but this is the best. I’d prefer for both of us to be on stakeout.”

“Why?” She asks. “There’s a clear risk to the civilian here.”

I shake my head. “The ones who mugged her husband were civilian in nature, based on their weaponry. Firearms and swords. The mother just needs to give over the money, or utilize the barrier. Preferably the latter, since it’ll let us know that they’re there. They don’t have anything to pierce a qi barrier with. On the other hand, the drugs could mean something more significant. Perhaps it’s just one person’s stash, but we can use that person to snuff out a larger criminal ring by going after their supplier.”

She looks dissatisfied. “That’s...you’re making a lot of assumptions, Yuki.” 

I shrug. “Perhaps, but it gives us the best chance of completing the mission. In terms of civilian welfare, destroying a potential crime ring is more important than one night of protection. I’ll have no problems returning their money anyways.”

“…Understood, captain.” 

…

An hour before the deadline, Setsuna finishes implementing her seal design. 

“So when you want to trigger the barrier, you’ll press this tag. It’s set to go off by a certain amount of pressure and will only trigger once, so please don’t hit it by accident. I’ve placed it by the door so you can activate it if they show up.”

“You created a pressure trigger?” I ask, surprised. She shakes her head.

“No. I just deconstructed some of the more advanced explosive tags, courtesy of Katsuo, then pieced it together to create this.”

“So, um…this won’t explode, right?” Ms. Matsushima asks.

Setsuna smiles slightly. “No, it won’t. It’s tied to the array that I’ve written outside, which will bring up a qi barrier. The only things that’ll be able to go through it…well, not even a civilian shotgun could break this. Maybe a cannon…? But anyways, I’ve fed it enough qi to keep it going at full strength for a few hours, which should be more than enough.” 

“I…thank you so much. If…” The woman swallows. “If it is not too much to ask, could you…keep my children somewhere else? I don’t…want them to see what’s going to happen. In case...” 

Setsuna glances at me, and I shrug. 

“Yes. I’ll bring them back tomorrow.”

“R-Really? Thank you so much!”

I don’t say anything. Setsuna seems to have a plan, and I’m supposed to be letting her speak up for herself, anyways. Even if, as I suspect, Mirai and Kitaro are just going to be brought to my house. 

…

“Here you go, darling.” I say, pasting a smile onto my face as I hand over a vanilla ice cream cone. 

“W-Why thank you…ehehe…yeah, no.” Mari’s voice abruptly shifts from sweet to dry. “This was a terrible idea.” 

“So we’re in agreement, then?”

We’ve situated ourselves very close to the household. Thankfully, it’s next to an ice-cream parlor, so we can sit and watch over the park without standing out too much. We’ve even changed into appropriately civilian clothing, although we’ve had to leave most of our tricks at home. That being said, I’ve still planted my sword into a seal at my hip. That particular piece of gear is too useful to leave behind. 

To compensate for the lack of tools, both of us are sitting at our highest levels of qi resistance. For me, that’s fourth-level resistance, which should be sufficient to stop even a rifle bullet. 

“Yes. Looks like I’ll have to rely on you and Setsuna for acting, it seems.” She says, a little sheepish. 

I shrug. “We all bring our own skills to the table. Setsuna’s the utility sealer and assassin, I’m the balanced combatant and leader, and you’re the meathead.” 

Mari snorts indelicately into her ice cream. 

“Ah, here. If we aren’t pretending to be a couple anymore, then you can have this, too.” I hand her the second ice cream cone, which she takes and begins devouring eagerly.

“Bet you’re wishing you’d run this assignment with a certain someone else.” She teases. 

“Mm…not particularly.” I reply. “You have a lot more offensive power, which we might need. I can handle any of the stealth and utility requirements.” 

She rolls her eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

Of course I know that she’s referencing the whole ‘couple’ thing. I’m just choosing to ignore it.

“I know. I’d rather just focus on the mission than talk about this right now.” 

“Complicated situation?” She asks kindly. “It seems like you guys are better now, though. It was pretty tense for a while, but she seems to be a bit happier since her collapse.” 

I wince. 

“Complicated, huh…? Yeah, that’s one way to put it. For better or worse, it’s taken care of now, though. We, ah…worked it out.”

She snorts. “Through sex?” 

“No. What is with you and—“

Soft twin pops ring out through the night air, and a blossom of intense warmth erupts through the left sight of my chest. My  _ Heavy Wind _ technique dissipates, disrupted by my sudden lack of focus. Glancing down, I’m alarmed to see the blood soaking my shirt.

_ What just happened? _

**I’ve been shot.**

Wait, two— 

Mari collapses, blood splattered against the wall behind her. I snarl, funneling more qi to my eyes and arms as I unseal and draw my sword— 

_ Pop. _

Reacting instantly, I move, blocking the bullet aimed at my head with a Wind-enhanced blade.

My free hand comes up diagonally, creating a wall of twisting air that persists for a few moments, deflecting a second projectile harmlessly away. By the time it dissipates, I’ve already blown out the wall behind me and retreated, Mari cradled in my arms.

“Ugh…w-what…?” She stirs weakly, looking dazed. She’s been shot right through the stomach, but it looks like a relatively clean wound. But it’s bleeding heavily. 

And my own injury—

_ Right through the heart. _

And it’s  _ resisting  _ my healing. 

**I don’t have time for this.**

Taking a second to focus, I draw on my stores of Etheria, willing myself to heal. The bullet’s travelled cleanly in and out, so I need only repair the substantial trauma and deal with the internal bleeding. It’s something I should have been able to handle without resorting to Etheria, but for some reason, I’m not able to…

Soon enough, I’ve healed my injuries, and turn to Mari.

_ Fuck, her wound is the same way. _

With no choice, I’m forced to use more Etheria. Cursing silently under my breath, I force it into her system, where it targets and consumes the foreign energy to begin healing itself. Since that’s a self-sufficient process, I’m able to turn my full focus to our attacker, ignoring the burning in my nerves from channeling Etheria so hastily.

_ How did they get through my resistance?  _

Fourth level resistance should have been sufficient to block the bullet outright. Only something with qi should have been able to—

_ Oh, hell. _

…Our mission is now of far greater importance. If someone is giving civilians weapons that are somehow able to fire qi-infused bullets…they’re now a substantial threat to our ninja. 

First, I need to get Mari somewhere safe. Whatever our attacker is, they shouldn’t be able to…

_ Fuck. They can go through qi barriers. _

If that racketeering trio are armed with enhanced guns, she could be shot right through the barrier. Normal bullets wouldn’t do much unless fired from something like a gatling gun, but with qi involved? Different story, entirely.

_ And they weren’t afraid of ninja, according to Mrs. Matsushima. Shit. That gang, and the ones who shot us…they’re  _ **_definitely_ ** _ related.  _

Then, there’s only one good move to make. 

I unseal my bow, take out a very special arrow, and fire it into the air. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't, you should consider looking at some of my spin-offs! :)


	49. (3.4.3) Encroaching Shadows, Part 3

#  **3.4.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Encroaching Darkness, Part 3**

The bright flare I launch attracts the night patrol to our location, where I briefly explain the situation to them. 

_ Objective: Locate the source of the drugs found at the Rose Garden Park in the South sector of the city. If possible, eliminate or apprehend any criminal elements identified in relation to the drugs.  _ **_If necessary, retreat for backup._ **

Although not optimal, as it completely blows our stealth, the original mission was to gather intelligence. We have a solid lead for now, and have discovered that this mission is far more dangerous than previously anticipated. 

We can always come back. Even if said criminal elements will go underground, we can dig those up later. It’s a lot harder to do that when we’re  _ dead _ . I’m not satisfied with it, but this is the best choice. 

With the patrol alerted to the types of weapons the unknown enemy uses, they head out to hunt down the attackers, leaving Mari and I to return to our makeshift base, where we explain the situation to Mrs. Matsushima, and receive some information in return. The racketeering gang that had attacked her husband hadn’t shown up tonight. Based on the timing of the attack on us, and the similar weapons…they’re undoubtedly related. 

_ Silenced qi rifles…? _

Rifles are  _ loud _ . But the rifles that had been used on us had barely made a blip on my radar, even in the relative quiet of night. They couldn’t have been that far, right? The sound should have been louder — I could only detect the direction they were firing from, but…

Too many questions. I’ve got to consult with Hikaru.

“We’d better head back and write up a report.” Mari mutters. “And I guess by we I mean me. I’ll write up the report. Ugh.”

I smile slightly. “Job benefits. Welcome to being an elite ninja.”

She groans.

“It isn’t really…safe for us, is it?” Mrs. Matsushima asks. “If those people who shot you and the ones who attacked my husband are connected…”

Mari’s eyes widen. “I hadn’t even thought of that. I don’t think they’ll connect it to you, but…you guys should get out of here, for your own safety.” 

The mother winces. “There isn’t really…anywhere for us to go. Not with…the kind of money we have.”

It doesn’t even take me a moment to interject. 

“If money’s the only problem, then I can have you move somewhere else in a few days, at most.” I note. 

_ Thanks, Akane Akiyama. _

“If…that’s too generous, but if that’s really okay, then…please.”

I shake my head. “It’s no problem.” 

…

“That was a really nice thing you did.” Mari says, a few hours later. We’ve brought and escorted the family to an inn in the South Ninja sector, somewhat close to where Mari, Setsuna, and I live. Actually, it’s just down the street from Sayaka.

“It isn’t my money.” I reply simply.

“Still, though.” She insists. 

I shrug. 

It only takes us moments to return to our own respective homes.

“Anyways, I’ll see you tomorrow, captain. Take care, alright?”

“Will do. Have fun writing that report.”

“Ass.”

I wave as I step inside. Although I’d been planning on heading over to Hikaru’s, I want to check up on Setsuna first.

As usual, she’s sitting in the middle of the living room, scrolls and ink lying around everywhere. Glancing up at me as I head closer, she smiles slightly. “How’d the mission go?”

“Terrible.” I say bluntly. “I got shot.”

“You?” She asks, surprised. “By  _ what _ ?”

“A rifle.”

She blinks. “ _ You? _ ”

“It was silenced to an unusual degree, and…somehow, the bullets must have had some kind of qi enhancement. They went right through my fourth-level resistance, Setsuna, and resisted healing even afterwards.” 

Being able to pierce my skin when I’m fully prepared is very unusual. Fourth-level reinforcement is already extraordinary, but my Ice aberration has left me with particular powerful physical resistance and durability. Furthermore, as I’d discussed with Hikaru, my aberration is even more defensively oriented. 

For something to punch  _ cleanly _ through that? A rifle is a particularly high-energy projectile and might’ve been able to draw blood…but that should have been all. Chakra defenses are particularly good at absorbing and cushioning energy, mitigating the worst of the damage, and mine are  _ very _ good. 

“Healing resistance is consistent with qi-inflicted wounds…but magnified severely…” Setsuna mutters. “But what could they have done to make it softer…? Normal silencers are only partial dampeners, but…” 

“Wait, there are ‘normal’ silencers for rifles?” I ask, surprised. She nods authoritatively. 

“Yes, but the name’s a bit of a misnomer. They don’t truly silence the shot — that’s just not possible. The bullet breaks the sound barrier, and there’s just no way you’ll be able to get rid of that sound.”

“…But it was.”

“Huh?”

“The bullet barely made any sound at all.”

“Eh?”

“…Explain to me what happens when a gun goes off. Specifically, the sounds that should occur.”

“Um…” She bites her lip. “It’s complicated, and depends on the gun that you’re using. In your case, they most likely used a bolt-action rifle…so assuming they were a decent distance from you, you would have heard the bullet breaking the speed of sound, and the sound of the bullet firing and the gas being released from the propellant…”

“The sounds?” I ask, cutting her off.

“Something like a ‘crack’, and a ‘pop’.” 

“I only heard a soft ‘pop’. There wasn’t any ‘crack’ at all.”

She frowns. “Subsonic ammunition, maybe…?” 

I shrug. “I was able to parry one of the shots, but that was after I got shot. I knew their direction and saw the flash.” 

“I don’t know enough.” Setsuna admits. “I’d have to see the weapon itself. If they’ve enhanced the bullets with qi, or the rifles…I have no idea what’s really possible with them.”

I nod. “Well, I’ll just have to make that another thing to look into...and how do you know so much about firearms?”

She smiles, holding her fist out to the side. Quickly opening and closing it, a pistol pops into existence, presumably unsealed from somewhere in her hand. 

“Guns have a low learning curve.” She shrugs. “Compared to some of the stuff I’ve had to learn…well, they’re really not that hard to handle. And they require zero qi. They have their weaknesses, but all tools come with those.”

“True.” I admit. I must admit that I feel a little less indifferent to the dangerous weapons than I’d used to. Even my defenses can be breached, it seems. Chakra-enhanced firearms…

Setsuna with guns, though? That is a simple way to give her a little bit of lethality, so I’m interested to see what she does with it. I’ve never heard of a ninja using civilian firearms before, but…well, Setsuna’s a little special. I’m curious to see what, if anything, she can do with them.

Actually, come to think of it...

“Hey, Setsuna, it’s been a while since we’ve properly fought, haven’t we?”

“Huh? Er…yeah, I guess so.” She mutters. “Uh…you know, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever actually fought you seriously, have I? But why do you want to?”

“I’m curious to see where we stack up.” I reply simply. 

“Are you using…you know?” 

I shake my head. “No, that wouldn’t be any good. I’ve got to be able to fight without that.” 

“Hmm…I  _ have _ been curious about my own abilities. Yeah, sure, but tomorrow morning, alright?” She looks apologetic. “I can’t leave halfway through this array.” 

I take a cautious step away, wary of any potential explosions. “Sure. I’m going to head to Hikaru’s house, now. There’s some follow-up necessary for some of the stuff that’s happened recently.”

Setsuna nods. “Have fun, then. Any idea when you’ll be back?”

I shrug. “Honestly…I’m not sure. I’ll do my best to be back before too long, though.”

“Be safe, Yuki.” 

“I will.” 

…

“Hey, Yuki.” Hikaru asks me from across the room as she pours two cups of tea. “Remember why I originally took you on as a real apprentice? 

_ “But, anyways, one of my more advanced books hypothesizes on the nature of the Spiritual Core. I strongly believe that it is where most of the personality is stored, and that it interacts with the brain in some manner. I won’t get into the details, but…needless to say, this Veil may be a factor in your emotional suppression, if not the reason outright.” _

Modern medicine agrees that the brain is the center of emotion and personality. That hasn’t changed since she first proposed her idea in her book. 

“You wanted to study my Veil to confirm your theory on the Spiritual Core.” 

“Yes, exactly. It’s why I had you study meditation, so you could begin using it yourself. By changing how much of your Veil you use, you’re able to directly influence your emotions. That’s indicative.”

“And makes zero sense, anatomically.” I point out.

She shrugs. “I know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. The Spiritual Core…Yuki, the avatar that one constructs to manipulate their Mindscape, that’s a visual representation for us. A handicap.”

“Right. You had me develop one for that reason.” 

“Why do we need it in the first place? If our Mindscape is all mental, then why would we need an avatar for it?”

“So that we can visualize the process? It’s easier to do something when you don’t just have to…’will’ it to happen.” 

“Yes, but shouldn’t something like that go away with experience?” 

I hesitate. “I suppose so, but that’s just an assumption, isn’t it? Maybe we  _ need _ it.” 

“Why?” 

“Well…” I try to think of a reason to justify my assertion. “Humans are rarely accustomed to doing something as purely intellectual as manipulation of the mindscape, even ninja. In fact, you could say that us Users are even  _ less _ accustomed to doing things like that, because we’re so used to expressing things physically.”

Hikaru smiles. “Point, but we’re not unused to working with our mental energies. After all, you’d have to be accustomed with that to use any real qi technique at all.”

“…Damn, Psychia, isn’t it?”

_ Right. I’m an idiot for forgetting. Physical and mental.  _

“But still, Psychia is horribly easy to manipulate once you get it down. It’s little more than the combination of intent and knowledge, isn’t it?” 

She shrugs. “That isn’t wrong. That’s a point in my favor, however.”

“Is it?” I ask, sudden inspiration coming to my mind. “Prior to becoming a proper User, it takes  _ years _ of work to get good enough to really start using any kind of qi technique because of how hard it is to manipulate our Psychia. Potentia, on the other hand, is far easier to wield.”

Right, that’s the basis of reinforcement. Even a kid could do that without a problem, if they worked at it for a while.

“Hmm…interesting thought, Yuki. I’ll admit that I hadn’t thought of that because my particular growth was…special.” 

“Let me guess.” I say dryly. “Prodigy?” 

“Yes.” She shrugs. “Well, with my aberration, at least. I was actually really slow with the rest of it.” 

I consider her words, and, more specifically, where she’s been going with this whole thing. 

“…Oh. The mindscape is a visualization of the Spiritual Core.” 

“Yep.”

“A few days ago, I broke and reformed my mindscape.”

“Yep.”

“It changed. Tangibly so.” 

“Yep.” 

“Prior to that, my mindscape had been destabilizing due to our ritual inserting more of your Etheria in me than I was able to handle. In other words, my soul itself had been destabilizing.”

“Yep.” 

“So if my mindscape has changed, my Spiritual Core has changed. Which means that I, myself, have changed.” 

“Most likely.”

“…Damn. Hope I didn’t fuck up anything.” 

She snorts. “Oh, I’m positive you did. I’ll be running some tests on you shortly to measure just how strong you are, and compare it to the last time I ran them on you. But I can already feel some of the differences.”

I wince. “Right. If it helps, Mari said I’ve been growing stronger, or so she senses.”

“The Storm User, right? She made quite the splash at her fifth-star examination. It’s been a while since someone’s jumped so many ranks so fast. Well, I’m sure you’e gotten stronger. The rituals alone, problematic as they were, gave you a substantial boost. Then stabilizing your Core helped further. And I’ve noticed you’ve been growing physically stronger, as well.”

I nod. “Reinforcement is a force multiplier. Adding to the base can only help.”

“Indeed. Well, back to where we were…” She trails off.

“Oh, duh. If I’ve mentally changed, then that’s a point towards the Spiritual Core being the core of personality and emotion, rather than the brain?”

“Yes. Or…maybe, anyways.” She shrugs. “I’m here to follow the facts, not jump to conclusions.” 

“Right. How can I help, then?”

“Well, when you had a destabilized core, was anything off about you? Any mood swings? Loss of memory? Something like that.”

I wince, thinking about how I’d treated Setsuna over the last several days.

“Mood swings, yes. No memory problems, though.”

“How about your Ice? Damn, I should’ve paid more attention. Anyways, did your Ice grow…well, I’d imagine it’d be weaker…”

I consider my duel with Sayaka. “I’m not sure, but it’s possible that my reinforcement was weaker than usual.”

“Hm…that’s right, with your defensive aberration, your reinforcement is boosted. Maybe, then.” 

“Other than that…I don’t know. I can’t think of anything else that stands out.” I say, shrugging helplessly. 

“Right. Hm…I’ll think on it, anyways. Come by sometime soon so I can run those tests.”

I’m about to say my goodbyes when I remember something important that happened. 

“Also, Hikaru, something strange came up, before I…fixed my mindscape, so to speak.”

“What happened?”

“I phased through a wall.”

“…Sorry, what? Run that by me again.”

I explain what happened. 

“It sounds like you’ve discovered an aspect of your aberration that you hadn’t previously discovered. Hadn’t you always been saying things like…’my Ice’, anyways? This is probably a natural extension of that attitude.”

“…What? Are you implying that…my  _ attitude _ towards my aberration is…evolving it in some way?”

The medic glances at me. “Yuki, don’t you remember the key difference between aberrations and affinities?” 

_ Aberrations are completely natural and require no work to shift to, simply because they are the default state for us.  _

“You’re saying that because I’m particularly close to my element, I grow stronger as a result?!” 

She shrugs. “I’m not sure. Maybe. Mine worked like that, anyways. It’s how I became able to heal others with my aberration.” 

“Wait, really?” I ask, surprised. She flashes a crooked smile.

“Yeah…I couldn’t heal others until I actually started giving a damn about other people. Fun story. Maybe I’ll tell you it one day.” 

So Hikaru had been a misanthropic loner as a child, then? Heh. It must be quite the interesting story, if she’s changed to be the benevolent researcher that she is today.

I blink. “So your…your worldview, then, changed your abilities?” 

“Yes.”

“Since our aberrations are natural, then…they can change in ways that normal affinities will not. And, perhaps because of my destabilized mindscape…”

“That might be a dangerous assumption.” Hikaru says. “But…it might not be wrong, either. Withhold judgment for now. My point is, your aberration  _ can _ change. It will always be Ice, but the way you manifest it…that  _ can _ change. This is especially true for you, where your Ice grows stronger with the less emotional you are.”

“…In other words, Ice is the perfect storm of two of the main rules of aberrations?”

_ Aberrations are completely natural. _

_ Your emotions affect your aberrations. _

The latter rule applies to qi in general, actually. But, when combined with the first rule…

My humanity weakens my own powers. This is something I’ve known for a long while. But it’s a necessary sacrifice all the same. 

“Exactly so.”

_ So your worldview changed your abilities? _

No wonder my early Ice abilities manifested almost purely defensively. Regeneration, resistance…then, in this instance, when I wanted to  _ escape _ , and dove into my Veil…

I sigh, suddenly feeling cold. “Thanks for your help as always, Hikaru. I’ll head home now, see if I can’t come up with something useful.” 

She glances at me. “If you do ever want to talk about that past of yours, Yuki, please know I’m here to listen. I can’t say I know how you feel, but you might find that we have more in common than you think.”

  
“…I’ll keep that in mind.” I reply blankly, quickly leaving before she can say anything further. 


	50. (3.4.4) Encroaching Shadows, Part 4

#  **3.4.4 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Encroaching Darkness, Part 4**

“Are you okay?” Setsuna asks, looking concerned. “You didn’t sleep that well last night, did you?” 

I shrug. “It’s fine.”

_ It’s been a while since I’ve been unable to sleep for such troubling reasons, but I’m used to it, all the same. _

She winces. “I…I see. If there’s anything I can do to help…”

After talking to Katsuo, we’ve diverted to one of the larger training rooms to give Setsuna and I the room to go all out on each other. Mari’s tagged along, curious to see where we stand after well over three months of being together as a group.

“Mmm…I really will be okay, though. Just some existential stuff. Worry about the fight now.”

She nods, a bit of her old self returning. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”

Even I’m interested to see just where I stand against Setsuna. We’ve always taken it for granted that I’ve been a stronger combatant, but who knows how much that’s changed? 

“You two ready?” Mari asks. 

“Yep.”

“Then, on my mark…ready, set, go!” 

I don’t do anything, curious to see what she’ll open up with. It’s sort of interesting to see that she’s elected to do the exact same thing, merely jumping away to gain distance—

_ Wait. She can print on the go, so… _

I chase her down, throwing a set of knives as I do. She unseals a sword from her hip and effortlessly deflects them before hurling the sword at me.

Not willing to test whether or not she’s left behind an explosive seal, I sweep my hand to the side, a blast of air deflecting the blade away.

“Time to take a page from  _ her _ book.” I mutter. “ _ Release _ .” 

_ Heavy Wind _ ripples out from me, a shockwave far more refined than I’m used to. With my full movement restored, I propel myself with my element, using the lingering wave as a shield of sorts from further projectiles.

With a flicker of qi, black seal lines sprout into existence across her body. Her empowerment. She reverses her retreat to lunge at me, a simple jab aimed at my head—

I don’t know what it is. Instinct, perhaps. Either way, instead of simply blocking the attack, I duck and  _ feel _ the sudden pressure roar past me. 

Alarmed, I try to move back, but too slowly — she turns the punch into a hammer-strike onto my shoulder. Despite her lack of leverage, it pounds into my hasty third-level reinforcement, cracking my shoulder blade. Gritting my teeth, I use my position to send a devastating kick into her side.

_ What the hell? It feels like I’ve just hit a steel wall. _

And it sure seems that way, as Setsuna winces but doesn’t otherwise react to a blow that would have gone right  _ through _ a normal person. 

Narrowing my eyes, I sway back, then try to sweep her legs instead and use my spin to transition into a whirling jump-kick. It works — she dodges my attempted sweep with a small hop, but doesn’t manage to block the second strike and tumbles back. 

_ Alright, so whatever she’s doing, it hasn’t changed her reflexes. She’s just a lot…stronger. Which might translate into speed, too.  _

Then…

I take two seconds to seamlessly slip into fourth-level reinforcement before lunging after her, drawing my sword as I do so. I already suspect that her current durability is sufficient to take direct hits from the weapon, so I empower it with Wind as I do, creating a devastatingly sharp edge.

Sure enough, Setsuna’s eyes widen as she dodges, a quick slash trimming a bit of her hair. The threat doesn’t dissuade her, though, as she unseals a sword and clashes against mine.

Surprisingly, her sword doesn’t give — and then I realize that she’s managed to reinforce her own blade with so much qi that even my Wind-enhanced blade can’t cut through it. We exchange a quick series of blows before she rears back, her sword glowing with energy.

Then she swings — but too far away, it can’t possibly reach — and the blade  _ shatters. _

What happens next is challenging to describe — some sort of blast wave of translucent qi ripples over me, shoving me back with  _ tremendous force _ . I can feel my bones buckle under the strain as a rush of nausea shoots through me, forcing me to instinctively close my eyes.

I think I must have blacked out for a moment, because I open my eyes to find myself upside-down and mid-air, a sword slashing through the air towards me. Through sheer instinct, I’ve kept a grip on my blade, and parry the hit, forcing Setsuna to disengage. With my free hand, I catch myself and turn my flight into a more controlled flip and slide. 

Setsuna lunges, the point of her blade shrieking past me as I contort my body — and, before she can turn her stab into a slash, I pulse qi into my foot and stomp to anchor myself to the ground. Abruptly, we’re both jarringly brought to a near-stop as I raise my other leg up and knee her  _ hard _ in the stomach. 

It’s the most direct hit anyone’s landed so far this fight, and she abruptly tries to disengage, gagging — but to no avail, as I’ve grabbed both of her arms, my sword held loosely in one hand as I clamp down on her wrists.

I manage to land a second knee, but before I can follow up with something more substantial, she contorts her free hand and scrapes her fingers across my wrist, blue light flickering across the tips. I immediately feel the heavy weight of paralysis lock down on me, but force it out with a burst of my own qi. 

The delay, barely a second, is sufficient for her to break free out of my grip with a sudden burst of strength. Before I can react, she disarms me with a twist and slashes diagonally, both blades cutting into my chest. Gritting my teeth, I launch a full, Wind-empowered kick into her that sends her blasting across the arena. 

She recovers admirably, almost casually sealing my own sword away as she does so. I take the time I’ve bought to heal up my wounds, boosting my natural regeneration with my own healing powers.

_ Alright, she has me at a little bit of a disadvantage here. My Wind-enhanced sword was the only thing that she was particularly scared of, and she absorbed all of my other hits. Without it, I’m running low on— _

_ Oh, who am I kidding? It’s finally time to break  _ that  _ out. _

I take a low stance, flattening my hands out. 

With the months of work I’ve put into creating my own enhanced hand-to-hand style…seeing  _ Turbulent Air _ and perfecting  _ Heavy Wind  _ is exactly what I needed to finally complete the base stage of it.

_ Gale Stance, Form One. _

Calling together my qi, I rocket forward, a tailwind accelerating me forward. As predicted, Setsuna aims to punish my charge by unsealing a massive boulder, the table-sized projectile rocketing towards me—

Without hesitation, I give myself a further speed boost before abruptly flooding Wind into my right hand,  _ one two three _ — 

My fist crashes into the rock, and the stored energy bursts out of my hand and  _ pulverizes _ the massive stone, sending shrapnel everywhere as I continue through, not even a scratch on myself.

Setsuna stumbles back, taken completely by surprise, but reacts in time to drop a smoke bomb at her feet. I blow away the ensuring cloud with a localized burst of Wind before meeting her head-on. She dodges, alarmed, as I slash at her with my hands, visible Wind energy flying off my hands and cutting up her clothes on near-dodges.

The second I spot an opening, I blast qi out of my hand and  _ whirl _ , landing a surprise spinning kick to her head. It’s a clean hit, and I’ve judged my force correctly — it knocks her out instantly, sending her crashing to the ground. 

There’s a moment of silence as I process the end of the fight, that Setsuna is unconscious, then I’m forced to dodge as Mari,  _ Mari _ comes flying past me, a punch aimed at my head.

“What the hell! You asshole! You’ve been holding back on me this entire time!” She shouts, her face a bizarre mix between completely serious and cheerily playful.

“I just finished it a few days ago!” I retort, blocking another punch. “And besides, it wouldn’t even work that well on you! Your stupid Storm aura is a natural counter!” 

Wind tends to beat Lightning. Against Storm, however, which is an order of magnitude more intense, it loses, instead. Against the former, the _nature_ of Wind disperses Lightning-element qi, which aims to pierce. However, Storm is simply too intense for the ‘softer’ element, so to speak, and tends to ignore it as a result. Against Mari, whose primary combat technique runs a layer of powerful Storm through her aura and skin, my empowered Wind attacks would be only marginally more effective than normal, and I’d just get shocked in the process. 

“Oh, really? Darn.” With that realization, Mari abruptly stops attacking me, leaving me free to pick up Setsuna’s fallen body. “But still, you took me by surprise there. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone exert that kind of brute force in a long while…well, besides me, anyways.”

“Oh, against the rock?” I wince. “Yeah, I had no idea if I was going to be able to go through that or not.”

The Storm User grins ruefully. “Well, it sure caught all of us by surprise.”

My handler glances at me. “I suppose so.”

Hm. He’s remarkably silent right now. Normally, he’s completely willing to give advice and criticism after a spar, especially if the combatants haven’t picked up on their own mistakes. So…

_ Somewhere, I made a serious mistake. _

I mentally review the fight from beginning to end. 

“The rock, isn’t it?” I ask. “She must have had seals on it, out of my sight.” 

“Yes. A whole bundle of explosives. But she hesitated because she wasn’t sure if it would have been lethal.”

And I punched right through it. Had that been a real fight, she could have blown me to pieces. I’d been high on my strength, and aimed to go through instead of simply dodging. 

“I got careless.” I admit. He inclines his head.

“Learn.” He replies simply. 

Huh. I miss the almost antagonistic way he used to refer to us, back in the day. Now, he acts like an actual teacher, which is nice, but it also has the side effect of feeling very distant. 

“I will.” I nod. “Is there a way to detect seals, somehow? I had absolutely no idea.” 

He shrugs. “Become better at qi sensing. All seals give off a certain amount of qi, the same as any person. It just requires a particularly high level of sensitivity to pick up on it.”

…

It isn’t until three hours later that Setsuna wakes up.

“…Ugh.” Propped against a tree in one of the outside training ground, she stretches, systematically cracking all of her joints as a hand heads up to rub at her temple.

“Good afternoon.” I say softly, falling out of my meditative trance. “How do you feel?” 

“…Like I’ve been kicked in the head way too hard.” She mutters. I repress a smile as I bring a hand, glowing with scanning qi, to her head.

“You’re fine. It’s just going to hurt for a bit, but…” I focus my qi, doing my best to alleviate some of the pain. 

“Hah…thanks, Yuki.” She sighs in relief. “That was…wow.” 

I smile, patting her head as I lower my voice. “Katsuo tells me you would’ve won that fight if you didn’t hold back.” 

“Wouldn’t have killed you anyways.” She murmurs. 

“Maybe not.” I acknowledge.

In the end, I’m still the superior combatant…but the gap’s lesser than I’d thought. 

“What on earth was that thing you did with the sword?” I ask. 

That moment in particular stood out to me. Some kind of force attack, but so fast, with almost no build-up, and bringing with it a sense of sickness.

Her eyes light up. 

“That’s one of my conceptual seals.  _ Limit Breaker.  _ It’s basically an overcharged storage seal, flooded with too much qi. Incidentally, it’s enough foreign qi to give your system a nasty shock, as well, since it comes out all at once. It’s quick, but powerful. And…very, very expensive.”

“Wow, I’ve never even heard of anything like that. What about the other thing, your defense? That’s definitely different from what I remember you using in our spars.”

“Ah, that was my…well, I call it  _ adaptive armor. _ It’s a combination of sealwork and the basic ninja arts, where I use an array layered across my body to reinforce areas that are undergoing a certain amount of pressure. It’s much more efficient than typical reinforcement as a result, and more intense. I can also manually control it to empower my own attacks, but that’s harder and takes more qi. I only finalized it recently and I wanted to surprise you with it.” 

I smile slightly. “Consider me surprised. Your adaptive armor…that isn’t so dissimilar to what I was doing myself. My  _ Gale Stance _ utilizes bursts of qi at specific moments to empower myself or propel me, but that requires a certain level of Wind mastery, high reflexes, and strong passive reinforcement.”

“So something that works particularly well for you, then?” She muses. 

“Pretty much.” 

But it  _ will _ take time to refine. Simply preparing for the most basic usage of it took months of practice, using a crude version with my Wind control. The second stage will be a magnitude of order more challenging, both in concept and execution.

_ Perhaps I can bring some form of it out in time for the Fourth Star Examination? _

I’m pulled from my thoughts as Setsuna rests her head against my shoulder, drifting back off to sleep. 

It doesn’t take me long to do the same.

…

“…ready for the examination?” 

I silently wake, but don’t open my eyes, reaching out instead to ‘taste’ the air, so to speak. Mari and Katsuo, I think, based on the voices as well as their auras. 

“Oh, yeah. Setsuna’s spiked incredibly in battle ability, and Yuki’s been at about the level of a fourth-star combatant for a while now, even prior to his substantial strides in close-combat recently. I’m actually more concerned about his ninja arts than anything, since his physical abilities will undoubtedly be quite substantial by the time the examination rolls around.” 

“They still have…ten weeks, don’t they?”

“Yes. But I’m confident both could pass as-is.”

“Then why haven’t you said anything?” Mari asks, curious. 

“Because I wanted to motivate both of them, of course. Their lives don’t end after this examination. They’ve got to grow stronger, and this is the best time for it.”

“They’re still kids, though.”

“Yes. And I’ll ensure they survive long enough to turn into adults. I think it’s time for their first assassination mission. Your ongoing one has hit a bit of a dead end, yes?”

“Yeah...” 

“Right. I’m going to go set that up, then. Training’s over for the day. I’ll debrief everyone at…hmm, six in the evening. Yuki’s house.” 

I feel his presence fade away, leaving Mari behind. She sighs heavily.

“Something on your mind?” I ask, cracking an eye open. She glances at me, unsurprised.

“Yeah. How much did you overhear?” 

“…Exactly what Katsuo intended me to.” I mutter. 

There’s no way both of them failed to notice my eavesdropping. I’m good at suppressing my aura, but not to the point that you couldn’t detect the difference between being asleep and being awake, like how Setsuna can.

She smiles mysteriously.

“Well, Setsuna’s asleep.” I say.

“Are you sure?” Mari asks knowingly. “She’s got me with  _ that _ before.” 

“Positive.”

This close to her,  _ physically touching _ her, I’m able to read her aura. She’s dead asleep. 

_ I want her to grow strong too, after all. It’s a little deceptive, not telling her what I’ve overheard, but it really is for the best, I think. _

…

Setsuna sleeps through the entire afternoon, and would have slept through the briefing itself if I hadn’t awoken her. Apparently, her body is still punishing her for all of her late nights from last week.

“Now that we’re all awake…” Our handler sends Setsuna a pointed look from his position, leaning on the hallway wall, “We’re going to talk about your upcoming mission.”

Setsuna wisely pretends that she’s still waking up as she tries frantically to figure out what he’s talking about.

“The assassination mission, right?” Mari asks, unintentionally saving Setsuna. 

“Precisely. We leave in a week to Eclipsia.”

“Quick, Mari!” I cut in. “A fact about Eclipsia, go!” 

“Oh, screw you! It’s the western capital, known primarily for its infrastructure. However, it is also quietly infamous for the high levels of corruption that infest its civilian government, and is well known for its criminal underworld.”

I blink, a little surprised that she’s that well-read up on it.

“I travel.” She says in explanation. “Remember? I’ve been a ninja for two years longer than you have.”

_ Right. I forget sometimes with how easy it is to interact with her. She’s been at this for much longer than I have. _

“Still can’t dodge a sniper bullet, though.” I snark. 

“You got shot first!” She retorts, grinning all the same. Behind that grin is a tinge of worry, though. 

“Anyways…” Katsuo interjects, pretending that the last few seconds haven’t happened, “As Mari mentioned, Eclipsia is…a shithole. Things like slavery and prostitution are openly practiced, the air smells like drugs in some sectors, and it is frankly not a very good place to be at all.”

“Why is it the western  _ capital _ , then?” Setsuna asks, looking disgusted.

“Money.” Mari supplies. “Drugs and human trafficking are  _ lucrative _ . There isn’t a solid ninja presence, either, so it makes it easy to get away with it. I imagine their police force is in on the whole thing, too…”

Katsuo nods approvingly.

“Who are we killing, then?” I redirect the conversation. As interesting as it is, I already know all of these things, thanks to the perfect recall that developing my mindscape developed. We’ve learned this in school, although most people tuned these particular lectures out.

“Kin Aikawa.” Our handler says. “He’s a minor businessman, but one that’s stepped on the wrong side of the primary gang in town, the Moonstruck. That being said, they’re struggling to take him down because the man’s hired a squad of ninja from a different village. We don’t know which.”

“So they hired us to assassinate him?” Setsuna clarifies.

“Correct.” 

“Any information on the opposing ninja?” I ask. 

“None.”

I frown. “Great. Well, given his status, he probably hasn’t hired anyone too substantial. This mission should be within our abilities.” 

Kin Aikawa Assassination Operation

_ 4-7S:4S _

_ Assigned: 2S, 4S, *7S, 8S | 2H  _

_ Leader: Takeshi Katsuo _

_ Objective: Assassinate Kin Aikawa in Eclipsia within two weeks. _

Simple and to the point, I suppose.

Wait, 2S?

“In light of your performance this morning, I have seen fit to officially promote you to second-star, Setsuna.” 

Eyes wide, the girl hastily bows. 

“T-Thank you, sir!” 

He pats her head, once.

“You’ve earned it.” 

Setsuna rises, something glimmering in her eyes.

_ Pride. _

Unbidden, a smile rises to my lips.

_ That’s right, Setsuna…you’ve earned it.  _

  
  



	51. (3.4.5) Encroaching Darkness, Part 5

#  **3.4.5 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Encroaching Darkness, Part 5**

The preparation and travel goes uneventfully, and we arrive on the outskirts of the town within a day, despite the dramatically farther distance. Now that we’re not limited to the movement speed of a carriage, we’re able to cover high distances much faster.

Eclipsia is very different from Alune. The familiar wood and stone of my town has been replaced by brick and tile, and the lush forests and rivers have been replaced by a hotter, drier climate. Although plant life is still certainly supported, it isn’t as green as I’m used to, and it’s a bit hotter, which makes me a bit uncomfortable. 

It’s also very big, bigger even than all of Alune. There’s a substantially higher population here, but it’s almost entirely civilian with most ninja only passing through, like us. What ninja live here are reclusive and serve only themselves, rather than any village. 

“Alright, Yuki, team leader.” Katsuo speaks up as we get within visual range of the city. “Are we going in through the front gate or sneaking in?” 

I bite my lip. “On the one hand, we obviously look like ninja. It’ll alarm the target if we’re seen. And additionally, we have two women on our team. Ninja or not, it’s just inviting trouble with the type of people on the streets. On the other hand, sneaking in involves getting around their defenses and sensors. Normally, that would be a joke, but the people in charge have very good reason to keep unknown ninja out, so those are probably a bit risky.” 

“But getting caught by the Moonstruck wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, right?” Setsuna interjects unexpectedly. 

I blink. “I suppose not, unless they decide that we’re incompetent as a result. If we do get caught, it has to look intentional.”

“Not a bad idea.” Katsuo says evenly. “What else?”

I can’t think of anything.

“Any ideas, Mari?” I ask. “You’re the second most well-travelled person here. And…” I frown, thinking of our previous conversation, “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

“I have.” She admits. “In this case, I would definitely not just walk into the slums. That problem you mentioned, with two women in the party…yeah, not a good idea.”

“That bad?” Setsuna mutters.

Mari winces. “Let’s just say it’s where I was first blooded and leave it at that.”

_The first time she killed someone was in this town, huh?_

“So we should sneak in…?” I muse. “Alright. What defenses can we identify, then? Mari, do you remember?”

“I do, but…” She hesitates. “I don’t think any of the old intel I have is good. It was a different gang in charge last time, and they had multiple sensor ninja."

“So we’ll infiltrate their slums. And qi sensors, huh…?”

“I have a method to get Mari around the qi sensors.” Setsuna volunteers.

“Huh? Why only me?” 

“Because the rest of us are all adept suppressors.” I retort. 

“…Oh.”

Katsuo’s more than skilled enough to have developed that level of control. My aberration’s forced me to do the same. And Setsuna has a presence so slight that she’s effectively suppressed even without trying. 

“That’s okay.” Setsuna stands on her tip-toes, patting Mari on the head. “We still love you.”

I snort as the Storm User sends the girl an affronted look. 

“Anyways, here. This’ll solve your problem.” Setsuna unseals a marked paper tag from her hip.

“What is that?”

“External qi suppressor. Fair warning — this isn’t going to be fun for you. Now turn around.” 

“Qi suppressor? Wait, so like—“ She stops and shudders violently as Setsuna walks around her, lifts the back of her shirt, and slaps it onto the small of her back before triggering it with a pulse of qi. “Wow, you were not kidding about that, were you?”

“Will you be okay?” I ask. 

“Ugh, yeah. It just feels…uncomfortable.” She mutters. “Like there’s a strange pressure on me.” 

“You can break it if you try, but that’ll destroy the seal, so try not to do that unless it’s an emergency. Otherwise, you’ll alert every decent sensor in the nearby vicinity.” 

“You can still reinforce with that on you, right?” I confirm.

“Mm…yep.” She clenches her fist. “I just feel weaker.” 

“You’re supposed to.” Setsuna says dryly. “And your aura is much weaker. I can still detect you from here, but that’s because I’m standing so close.”

I glance at the girl, somewhat impressed. “I’m not much farther away and I can’t even tell she’s a User from here.”

She nods. 

“Are we missing anything?” I ask, glancing at Katsuo.

He shrugs enigmatically. “Are you?”

I roll my eyes, but think about it all the same.

“We aren’t disguised at all.” I mutter.

He cracks his knuckles, looking bored. “And have you prepared for that?”

In response, Setsuna unseals four sets of clothing.

“Sorry I couldn’t get anything more personal for you.” She apologizes to our handler. “Couldn’t sneak into your house.”

Mari blinks as she picks up her pile. “Wait, this is where my missing clothes went? I thought Aya—er…wait, you broke into my house?”

Aya…? Is that a name? The way she immediately changed the subject indicates an unwillingness to talk about it, and this isn’t the place to press her on it anyways. I’ll let it slide for now. 

“Oops.” Setsuna says blandly. “Must have slipped my mind.”

“…Right…” Mari says, sighing exasperatedly. “Well, this should work for civilian clothes. A little clean for the area, but…”

I reach down, pick up a handful of dirt, and throw it at her.

“…Great…that works…”

Soon enough, we’re all appropriately attired, with clothes that look properly worn. I’m not sure if it’s exactly right for the place, but it’s better than our old outfits all the same.

Stealth, infiltration, disguises…

“I think we’re set for the first part of this mission.” I decide.

“So we are.” Katsuo says. “Let’s go. Mari, show Yuki the best way to get in. From here on out, hand signals only.”

We memorized those in Academy to the point of fluency. Non-verbal communication is exceedingly important on missions like this, after all.

“It’s showtime.”

…

Infiltration begins without a fuss. It’s late at night, so there are relatively few people on the streets. They’re almost entirely drunk men or roving gang patrols, making them easy to bypass. Even Mari, who is certainly not a stealth specialist, is aware and quiet enough to navigate as we scour the area for clues.

In the slums, construction is primarily worn wood rather than the brick and tile that we saw from the outside. It’s in serious need of reform, that’s for sure. Alune doesn’t have anything like this, thanks to Constructor missions for Earth-affinity ninja. 

[Primary target is widespread.] Katsuo signs to me as we slip through a street. [Therefore?]

[Capture and interrogate?]

[Yes.]

On our next run-through, we quietly capture one of the patrols. It isn’t hard — we sneak up right behind them before using non-lethal hits to the back of the head to put them down, then bring them into an alleyway where I use my medical abilities to revive them one by one. 

From there, the simple threat of messy death by bifurcation gives us a solid lead to one of the gang’s informants in a nearby bar, which we head to.

“You three. No, four, hm? What’re ya here for?” A gruff voice calls out. Given the late hour, it’s only him and the barkeeper, the latter disappearing into a back room.

“What business is it of yours?” I ask, after realizing that Katsuo has no intention of stepping in.

“You’re all ninja, aren’t you? Wasn’t sure of the short girl at first, but…hm, let’s see…” 

…Fuck. So much for stealth. 

He takes a deep sniff of the air. “…Some kind of metal, isn’t it?” He asks, gesturing at Katsuo. 

“Electricity…?” He asks, staring at Mari, before turning to me.

What?! How— 

Instinctively, I ruthlessly suppress my Ice Nature and call my Wind to the surface, thinking of warm thoughts as I do so. The joy and love I feel for Setsuna. The bright emotion further diminishes my primary affinity.

“Hm, Wind…common enough. And you, girl, you’re…huh. The hell is that?” 

“…Void.” Setsuna says simply.

“…Aha, I see.”

“How on earth would you know any of that?” Mari asks sharply, realizing that there’s no point in pretending. The man’s senses are far too good for that. “Knowing that much…but yet, you aren’t a ninja yourself, are you?”

The man snorts. “Like hell. I’m a clairvoyant.” 

Clairvoyant?

Katsuo blinks. “You’re the one we were supposed to find, weren’t we?” He steps in. Although phrased like a question, it isn’t really one. 

“Got it in one. We had our street patrols roamin’ the area, with instructions to send any ninja my way.”

“Risky, isn’t that?” I mutter. The man shrugs.

“We got safeguards. Nothin’ ya need to worry about. Four of ya, and you’re all from Alune, aint’cha? Ya know your mission, right?” 

“Of course. You people want a certain piece of trash disposed of, correct?” Katsuo asks. 

“Heh. What a way to say it. The piece of trash named Kin Aikawa...he’s the one we want gone. He’s been aggressively targeting our business assets, and by target I mean destroying them. Ninja handiwork. Our people on the ground can’t do anything. Here’s a piece of paper with all the info we’ve got so far.”

Katsuo takes it without hesitation and scans through it. “Right, this is useful. Alright. We’ll take a day or two to scout it, then make our move.” 

“Good. Any questions for you lot?”

“What is a clairvoyant?” Setsuna asks innocently.

“…Someone of Arcacian origin with second sight, right?” I mutter quietly. 

Arcacia. Lunaria’s neighboring country…and a country of magic users. They’re a far larger country than ours, too. How on earth did this man get past the border?

He smirks. “Don’t think of it like that. It’s the innate ability to perceive beyond the visible, a sort of seventh sense. For me? I can smell you. I can smell your power, smell your element. The boss finds me useful for it, picked me off the streets.”

“Right. Anyways, we ought to head off, shouldn’t we?” Katsuo interjects. “Let’s go, you three.” 

The man waves. “I’ll be here if ya need me. Keep in touch.”

Following Katsuo’s lead, we quickly depart, heading down a nearby deserted street. 

“…An Arcacian Mage?” I hiss. “No, not a mage, he didn’t have any real power. Clairvoyance manifests even in their non-Users? How is that possible?!” 

Katsuo gestures at me to be silent and I obey, still thinking about the ramifications.

Clairvoyance is a rare gift obviously tied to magic potential. A non-User shouldn’t be an aberrant, after all. But yet this man had no detectable power. No, he felt like…if I’m being generous, a really low-level Academy student.

I quickly catch Setsuna’s attention. [What was his power?]

[Very weak. Less than me.]

How can someone with that little magical strength have something like Clairvoyance? And what on earth is the process behind being able to smell someone’s qi nature and power? Although I’d fancy myself quite familiar with the rules of qi by now, I know little about magic. That’s dangerous, especially with the potential for war with Arcacia. Not knowing their fighting style could be fatal. Moreover, studying magic might give me an insight into my own abilities. There’s zero public information on my aberration available, so anything that can give me useful information is helpful.

We make our way to a small, relatively cheap motel and book two rooms.

“Yuki and Setsuna?” Mari asks curiously, when Katsuo divides the rooms up. 

“Setsuna’s a Warden, as am I. The division makes the most sense.” Katsuo says simply.

“A Warden?” 

“Someone adept at defensively reinforcing a perimeter.” Setsuna explains. “We both use seals.” 

“Oh. Well, alright then.”

Once inside, Setsuna quietly sets up a variety of seal tags on the doors, windows, and walls. From what I know of sealing, those are reinforcement seals…and a good deal of other things I don’t quite recognize. 

“Anything I can help with?” I offer.

“If you know how to synchronize identification fields into a positional matrix that identifies individuals and triggers arrays based on them, then sure.”

I snort. “Think I’ll have to pass, then.” 

She smiles softly. “I appreciate the thought, but I’m fine.”

It doesn’t take her long to finish, and soon enough she’s asleep as I take first watch shift.

…

Nothing of interest happens overnight. At eight, we group up inside Katsuo’s room and go over the information they’ve compiled for us.

Kin Aikawa, a minor businessman, or, more specifically, a merchant. It’s as they said — he’s handled competition by using his ninja to brute-force the place. As for defense…

The first ninja in their squad of four, and the leader, is a short red-haired woman with long hair. Not much is known about her combat abilities as she’s only ever used pure hand-to-hand, but apparently she’s fast enough to dodge a bullet fired at a distance of twenty meters. 

_Not possible._

She’d have to be moving before the bullet was fired. Mathematically, that leaves her with something like…a twentieth of a second, right? Even if you could perceive that, I don’t think it’s actually possible to dodge that. 

On the other hand, if you predicted the gunshot, you could already be moving by the time the person presses the trigger. In that case…even I might be able to avoid it, depending on the circumstance. 

The second ninja thankfully comes with a bit more information, a…red-haired man?

“Hey, Katsuo, these two…don’t they look like—“ 

“Siblings, right? I’m not sure, but there’s a possibility. Especially with that hair color.” 

It looks pretty natural — and, more to the point, their facial features as shown in an artist rendering…

His skills seem to revolve around Fire-based ninja arts and close-combat. That is something I’d do perfectly fine against if I could use my Ice, but…

The other two are younger kids and look unrelated, a blonde girl and a brunette male that specialize in Wind and Earth respectively.

But reading into their showcased abilities…

“I wonder if this is beyond our pay grade…” Setsuna mutters. “They both seem like approximately fifth-star ninja, and the Wind user’s demonstrated potential flight abilities, which could put her at even higher. The Fire User’s demonstrated Blackfire, which is eighth-star level of skill, and the woman’s skills are totally unknown, only having an apparent high level of close-combat ability.” She continues. 

“However…we do have intel that they do not.” I note. “It’s a substantial advantage. And you’re also looking at this wrong. There’s absolutely no need to fight them.” 

Katsuo smirks, but says nothing. 

“A clean assassination. We’ll have to work on the exact method, so we’ll see what the gang knows about his habits and routine.”

“Let me.” Setsuna speaks up. I glance at her, surprised. “I’ll do it.”

“With seals?” I ask, surprised. She shakes her head, holding her hands out. I blink, surprised, as a rifle drops into her palms.

“This.”

Gazing into her steel eyes, I see nothing but calm determination behind them.

...She’s killed before. The fight against that man, back when we’d first met. She was the one who struck the killing blow, not I. That won’t be a problem.

If she didn’t think she was capable of it, she wouldn’t have volunteered.

There’s no problem, then. I still feel a little uneasy, but I have no reason to object.

“Got it. Then…let’s make our preparations.”

  
  



	52. (3.4.6) Encroaching Shadows, Part 6

#  **3.4.6 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Encroaching Darkness, Part 6**

Preparations move quickly. 

We head back to the bar, pick our informant’s brain, direct them to pass on a message, and gather some resources. Most importantly is a set of clothes for everyone that fits the rich district, so we don’t stand out — that’s sealed away, though, in favor of our ‘infiltration outfits’. 

So this is where the main bulk of the Moonstruck’s business assets lie, hm? We’ve left behind the worn-down wooden buildings for finely crafted brick and tile, and buildings are tightly packed together.

It’s lively enough, but I still detect a faint sense of unease in the air. Something’s off…that much I can tell. The way people hold themselves, perhaps? 

Either way, it sets me on edge as we head through the city, choosing less-travelled routes and moving quietly across rooftops. The architecture here tends towards being fairly tall, and it’s not uncommon to be forty meters or more above the ground.

[Two hundred meters out from here.] Setsuna signs to me as we rest, perched on the rooftop of the third-tallest building around our target’s house. Why the third? Any idiot takes the tallest building, and an experienced ninja would take the second. Those two would certainly be checked.

Therefore, the third. At least, so my thinking goes. Katsuo doesn’t seem to disagree, our two Wardens setting up an inactive defensive perimeter. By not activating it, no qi presence is created, meaning enemy ninja have to find us the old-fashioned way. If need be, it can be quickly activated to provide us a temporary safe zone.

After that, there’s little to do but wait, confirm the target’s schedule, and look for a good time to take the shot. The timing varies strongly as to his departure and arrival, but it’s always during the morning and the evening. His ninja seem to travel everywhere he goes, presenting us with a bit of a dilemma. 

[If we take this shot, we’re going to have to fight them.] I sign to Katsuo. [They go with him everywhere.]

[There’s one place they don’t.]

I think — it isn’t a hard question, though. [When they destroy business assets?]

[Indeed. Although only one or two of them might be necessary to do that, leaving the others to continue defense.]

I bite my lip.

[It’s hard to track him down while they do that. They have so many different potential targets, not to mention the dramatically increased risk of being caught if we start actively tailing him.]

He nods. [All very true points. What’s your plan, then?]

[…Setsuna should still take the shot, but not at the target. Instead, taking out one of the adults, or even severely wounding them, then…splitting them up. Setsuna and I should take the kids, while you and Mari fight the adults, one of whom should be crippled or dead. After, it should be no problem to pick the real target off.]

He nods. [That seems tactically sound, except for one thing.]

[I’m not worried about her missing. But…if they have some kind of defense, right?]

He nods. [Don’t worry. I have a plan for that one.]

Silently, the man heads over and ‘talks’ to Setsuna for a bit. Mari, apparently restless, gets my attention with a wave.

[I’m so bored.] She signs. [I’m used to this shit and I’m still bored.]

I repress a snort. [I know. At least we actually have confirmation on the target.]

Mari winces. [I’ve once had to stake a place out for a week and a half, and the target never showed.]

I cringe, thinking about that disappointment. Then blink as something occurs to me. 

[You’ve never talked about your past before.] I ask curiously.

A small grin finds its way to her face. [I know. But I do have a decent amount of experience out in the field…captain.]

I nod in acknowledgement, although her small jab brings a smile to my face.

[That you do.]

…

A few hours after our targets leave the place, Katsuo demonstrates one of the uses of his aberration for us. Picking up one of Setsuna’s rifle rounds, he concentrates. Slowly but surely, I can feel qi seeping into the metal, making it — making it  _ different _ . Soon enough, he’s done.

[Not quite the qi rounds that pierced Yuki and Mari, but they’ll be lethal in a very different way, even if the initial shot doesn’t kill.]

Somehow, I suspect that Katsuo is at least as competent in firearms as Setsuna is, if not more so. So this was his plan?

[Understood.] 

Good. Whatever he’s done has enhanced the possibility of a successful assassination. 

I breath slowly. In, out. Slip into a meditative trance, just for a little bit. 

A fight’s coming soon. It’s too risky to try and catch the man alone, not with his movements and guards. So we can’t avoid this. All we can do is stack it in our favor. Optimally, we kill the woman off the bat, giving us a numbers advantage. Mari and Katsuo can quickly kill the other adult while Setsuna and I stall against the children, then they come to help us.

What’s the worst possible outcome? We’re discovered by all four of them, losing the initiative. In such a case, we’d immediately retreat. That would be mission failure. Alternatively, the shot misses. Same thing. Anything that costs us the initiative with zero injury on the opposing team would lead to us retreating.

If the shot doesn’t kill, Mari and Katsuo should still be able to fight the man together. They’re both extremely skilled, and Mari’s Storm Aberration is an incredible trump card. Setsuna and I just need to hold out. The easiest way to do that would be to injure or kill one of our opponents, and I have plenty of tricks for that, as does Setsuna.

My Ice Aberration should be hidden as much as possible, but if I or Setsuna are at risk of dying, I’ll use it. Her life isn’t worth hiding it — and if I die in combat here, she’s going to be fighting a really bad battle. 

[Alright. Everyone, here’s the plan…]

…

It’s firmly late at night when the five targets come back, walking steadily down the road towards their home. We’re positioned behind them, so we definitely have a clean shot here.

Now’s a good a time as any.

Glancing around to make sure no one’s paying attention, I take out a small syringe of liquid from my pocket and inject it into my arm. 

We’ve gone over the plan multiple times. It’s very simple, as all real ninja plans are, with room for error and contingencies as necessary. Everyone’s ready. All that’s left to do…is to pull the trigger.

I glance at everyone to make sure they’re good to go, then nod at Setsuna.

[Ready?]

She nods, determination in her eyes and her rifle held to her chest.

[Take the shot.]

[Confirmed.]

She gets into position...sights down the rifle… exhales, and—

A quick crack heralds a bloody wound opening up on the woman as Mari and Katsuo disappear out of sight. The children jump away, shocked, as the brother roars in anger, spinning and sending a blast of fire towards us.

I grab Setsuna by the back of her shirt and leap away to the ground, putting a building between us. Halfway down, I let the sealer go, and she easily reorients herself into a controlled twenty-meter drop that we cushion with reinforcement. 

“Get back here!” A young voice shouts, and we turn in place as a scything blade of Wind screams towards us. Both of us drop to the ground, letting it pass by, before taking in our opponent.

No, our opponents — both the children are here, the Wind and Earth Users. 

Good. This is the best split. Mari and Katsuo against the two adults, one of whom should be grievously injured. And us, against the children. All we have to do now is stall for time. 

_ It’s good that they came to us, too. Saves us the time of forcing them to split.  _

“So this is your fault!” The blonde girl shouts at us.

I don’t reply, gathering my qi to my fingertips as I quickly sign to Setsuna—

[Work together. Plan C.] 

[Understood.]

[On three.]

“Kill them, Kazehana!” The boy snarls. 

“I know, Ishi! Let’s go!” 

The clock hits zero in my head. 

Heavy Wind ripples away from me, sending a low cloud of dirt rushing in all directions. Setsuna rides the blast as she leaps away, using qi to stick to one of the buildings fifteen meters in the air.

Ishi responds immediately by stomping his foot, a wall of Earth rapidly growing in front of the two siblings. A split-second later, a bullet thuds into the wall. My bow already unsealed, I fire a special arrow at it. Rather than exploding in flame, which would have obstructed our view, it detonates in a blast of Wind that shoves rather than disintegrates, blowing a hole through the wall. 

Kazehana steps out, a blur of Wind in front of her obviously prepared to deflect any normal arrow or bullet. It isn’t, however, up to the task of blocking my follow-up weighted arrow, empowered with velocity and Wind seals, and that cracks into her stomach with enough force to send her head over heels.

_ Damn. Looks like it was enough to stop it from going right through her. _

A bullet ricochets off the ground at my feet. Recognizing the message for what it is, I jump back and pool my qi as Ishi bursts out of the ground, dirt spear in hand. 

Gale Stance.

I slam a powerful palm thrust into Ishi’s chest as he realizes that I’m not where he’d expected to be, a spike of Wind erupting from the palm of my hand. He’s sent flying back, blood splattering across the ground. 

_ Non-fatal. He had some kind of Earth armor, and that absorbed enough of the blow. Still, I drew first blood. _

I gesture a crude approximation of thanks behind my back, then a rapid series of instructions. A quick double-crack of the rifle, suppressing fire, confirms that she understands. 

“A Wind user, then?” Kazehana mutters under her breath from behind the barrier, just barely loudly enough for my fourth-level reinforced hearing to pick up on. 

“Sensor too.” Ishi replies. “He knew I was coming.”

“No sneak attacks, then.” She whispers. “Let’s just stick together and take him down with ranged attacks. The girl’s weak as hell, I can tell. Can barely even detect her aura. Just keep up a defense, and she can’t touch you.” 

Well, if that’s what they’re planning on doing…and good, they’re writing off Setsuna, too. Then…

My Wind-enhanced sword cleaves through the Earth wall, but Kazehana, prepared even if unprofessional, manages to knock it away before it takes her head off. Following up from my throw, I lunge forward, my bow already unsealed and something new in my hands. 

“A spear?” Ishi yelps, surprised as the weapon clashes against his own.

That’s right. A spear offers vastly greater reach than a sword. Keeping this distance is vital. Fights between ninja ramp up immensely in lethality once the fight goes any closer, and the goal is to stall. 

To do that, I need to survive. And that means keeping the fight as slow as possible...unless…

He parries three rapid thrusts from me before regaining his footing, and knocking my weapon away with the greater weight of his Earth spear.

Without hesitation, I let go before it jars my arm and step in close, swinging my empty hand that suddenly isn’t so empty—

“Agh! Damn it, Kazehana, where are you?!” He stumbles away, a nasty gash down the front of his shirt that splatters blood across the tiled road. 

In my free hand is the remains of a shimmering blade of Ice. 

Hopefully they think that’s just Water. More importantly…payload delivered. 

“I can’t get around you! He’s keeping you between us! Back off more!”

“I’m trying!” 

Rotating to follow Ishi, I dissolve the blade and lunge forward, trading a dozen blows with the boy before landing a solid hit with a reinforced punch. 

“Ugh!” 

Smartly, he jumps backward with the hit, letting me send him flying backwards. It gives him the opportunity to trade places with Kazehana, who aims a powerful Wind bolt at me.

…One I deflect with a burst of water from my palm, cushioning the blow enough for it to do nothing to me. 

“What?! How?!” She yelps. “You just used Wind eight seconds—“ I cut her off with a sharp spear of water that she’s forced to flip away from.

Eight seconds would be an insane amount of time for me to make a shift in, especially since my current shift time is fourteen seconds. 

…That is, fourteen seconds from Wind to Water. 

Ice is effectively a near-instant transformation, since it’s my natural aberration. And Ice, fundamentally, is far closer to Water than Wind is, cutting the aspect shift to a mere six seconds.

“You’re out of your league.” I say instead. “Give up and cut your losses.”

Kazehana hesitates for just a moment. 

“…No.” She says instead.

“…Your funeral.” I whisper, as my qi gathers to me. 

Instead of a Wind attack, though, she opts for an entirely different avenue, slashing at me with her fingers. Remembering my fight with Sayaka, I dash out of range, Wind blades tearing through the air. 

“Prodigy or not, I’d like to see you hit me from here.” She leaps up fifteen meters into the air, hovering with qi. “Let’s see you block this!”

Taking a second to charge, she fires a massive bolt of Wind energy at me. Eyes widening, I reinforce myself to the third level and dart away, but it’s not enough to completely dodge the blast. 

“Die! Die! Die!”

Every scream from her punctuates another tearing bolt. Between the second and third shots, I roll and unseal a scroll of water straight upwards. 

It doesn’t quite absorb the blast, and I’m still crushed into the ground by the sheer force, but my reinforcement handles that just fine. Drawing on as much of the water as I can, I send what I can control upwards, forcing Kazehana to use a Wind attack to dissipate the mass of liquid.

Of course, that just makes it splash everywhere and reduces visibility. 

“Ishi! Get the fuck out here!” 

“…He can’t.” I say softly, as the water comes back down in a downpour. 

That’s right. That thing I worked on with Hikaru’s paid off.

Toxic Ice. Shortly before hostilities broke out, I’d injected myself with a particularly virulent toxin, poisoning my blood. This, in turn, poisons my Ice…which I’d left behind when I’d slashed Ishi. If he noticed that my blade dissolved as it cut, he didn’t have time to warn his partner, nor handle the poison before it paralyzed him. 

I’m not fully immune to the toxin, but it doesn’t matter. It won’t paralyze me, and I can handle the vastly reduced effects with my medical proficiency and the pain with my Veil. 

“What have you done to him!?” The girl snarls. It’s uncertain if she’s heard me or if she’s just figured out that I’ve done something more than simply injure him.

Silently, I gather some of the nearby water into a blade, and launch it away in a seemingly random direction. Her eyes track the blade’s movement before widening—

The flowing water runs red.

“You…you…I’ll  **kill** —!”

A crack rings out from behind her. 

“H…How…?” She whispers, as blood drips down from where she floats. Crimson rain, intertwining with the flowing water. 

“…Good work, Setsuna.” I say softly. 

[Retreat, wait until the girl is flying and distracted, then shoot her.]

Those were the instructions I’d gave to her, and she’d followed them to the letter. 

“N…No!” Wind erupts from her, deflecting a second bullet. She screams inarticulately, her element lashing out all around her, and I immediately backtrack, but too slowly — a bolt of Wind pierces into my chest straight to the bone. 

“Gah!” 

“Die!” She races at me, a suicidal comet, and instinctively, I shift completely to Ice and hurl a hand in front of me.

A tremendous impact as bones break— 

“Wha…wha…t…” 

I stare at Kazehana, and at the jagged lance of Ice that has replaced my arm. The lance that impales her, half her chest gouged out.

The Ice dissolves and my arm reforms, broken in multiple places. Her body falls to the ground, unmoving. 

I sigh explosively. 

Red-hot pain flares across my cheek — a bullet. I turn around, leaping away as I do— 

Ishi stands there, blood soaking his clothes from his multitude of grievous wounds, and a bullet wound through his upraised arm. An arm clutching my sword, the one that Kazehana had knocked away earlier. 

I hurl a knife at his face. He doesn’t react, the projectile stabbing into his head deeply before he collapses, too. Footsteps behind me cause me to glance back, hastily shifting back to Wind, but this time the presence is familiar, if faint.

“Setsuna.” I greet. 

“…Pay more attention, Yuki…” She murmurs. “I almost didn’t save you in time.” 

I know that saying something like ‘I hadn’t expected him to stand up again’ isn’t sufficient. That despite two stab wounds, a deep slash wound, multiple bruised or cracked bones, and a virulent toxin seeping through his blood, he’d stood up against all the odds for one last attempt on my life like some kind of demented zombie. 

“Sorry.” I whisper, the deep wound on my chest already healing, along with my broken arm. Stopping Kazehana had been far harder than anticipated. 

“They’re finishing their fight now.” Setsuna whispers. “I don’t think they noticed you using your element…but just in case, let’s destroy the evidence.” Setsuna tosses around a dozen seals, then grabs my arm. 

Taking her cue, I leap away as she triggers the explosive seals, tearing apart the ground and the corpses. 

That should remove any lingering traces of my Ice. 

“They’re done. Inbound.” 

Sure enough, Mari and Katsuo land next to us a moment later, apparently uninjured and alert. 

Our handler surveys the area. “Looks like it’s a good thing we took a prisoner.” He shakes his head. “Bit overkill, huh?”

“…They was more determined than anticipated.” I say simply. Mari glances at the blood coating my shirt and at the way my sleeve is torn off, but doesn’t press it. 

“Mission complete, then.” Katsuo states. “I’ve sealed the body of the main target away, and captured the man. Woman wound up dying from her injuries before I could get to her in time. Other than that, no complications.” 

“Who made the main assassination?” I ask, surprised. I’d been preparing myself for a chase, but looks like Katsuo and Mari had already handled that.

“I did.” Mari says simply. 

“…Right, super speed and all.” I mutter. She snorts, but doesn’t add on. 

“Let’s go make our report to our client, then. We’ll leave the body with him and return home.”

…

“Haha, looks like you guys had no problems.” The clairvoyant man says, studying the motionless and slightly crispy corpse of Kin Aikawa. “That’s all, then, unless you all have any questions?”

“Just one.” I say simply. “How’d you escape from Arcacia?”

He blinks. “Still on that thing, huh? Well, it was a long time ago and I don’t care no more, so I’ll tell ya if ya ready for it.”

I nod.

“Smuggling.” 

…I see.

“Thank you, then.” 

“See ya. Or not. Who knows?” He cracks up at his own…joke? 

We depart from the bar without a further word.

  
Human smuggling, huh…?


	53. (3.4.7) Encroaching Shadows, Part 7

#  **3.4.7 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Encroaching Darkness, Part 7**

The trip home is uneventful, and soon enough we split up. Katsuo and Mari go to make a report and drop off their prisoner, and Setsuna and I…well, we just head home.

The trip back is quiet. Glancing at Setsuna reveals nothing, thanks to her typical public mask, and eventually we step inside our house.

“…You scared me, Yuki.” She whispers.

What do I say to that? 

Instead of trying to protest, I try to imagine myself in her shoes. If a careless mistake on her part almost cost Setsuna’s life in a battle that should have been over. 

“I’m sorry.” I say, and mean it. “Thank you for protecting me.” 

Her hands gently snake around my chest as her face nuzzles into my back.

“…Of course, Yuki.”

‘If you want to live…don’t depend on me.’ That’s what she told me. 

I’m glad, then. Our bond isn’t a lie. That, when I was in danger, she acted to save me. I was right, then, She didn’t say those words out of a lack of willingness to, but rather a lack of belief that she could.

_ I hope, then, that the events of today have helped to change that attitude, Setsuna. _

...

“Hey, Hikaru?”

“What’s up?” She flips idly through a book, qi swirling from her free hand. With Wind manipulation alone, she deftly pours herself a cup of tea…without ever touching the cup or pot.

Sometimes I forget that my Master has a Wind and Water affinity as well. Even so, she uses them mostly for stupid parlor tricks like this, but she doesn’t even have to really try to make them work because she has so much control.

“What do you know about magic?” 

For a moment, the cup of tea she’s floating to herself briefly wavers. 

“…Magic, huh…?” She muses, putting the book down. “Did you encounter something strange on your last mission?”

“Our client had a man, a man who claimed to be a Clairvoyant. And he could detect the intensity and nature of someone’s affinity…through scent, bizarrely enough. He almost detected mine, had I not been so skilled at suppressing my hidden Ice.”

She hums. “You’re lucky. Some of the Clairvoyant abilities known to us would have pierced that defense, abilities that can see right through all of that into your soul itself.”

“…But…how?”

The researcher shrugs. “Well…magic.”

I stand up abruptly, turning to pace across the room. “I refuse to believe that’s the real answer. Nothing comes without explanation.”

Magic is a term used to describe the energy system used by the magi of the Arcacian nation. In many ways, it’s similar to the one we use — and I really don’t think that our systems are so very difference. Is a geographical border really sufficient to create such a massive difference in the ambient energy?

I’ve explored the topic myself in the library. There isn’t a whole lot known about the finer details of magic — at least, not publicly. But the major burning question I have, at least:

What stops us from using magic?

I’ve never, ever seen a Lunarian use magic before. It’s true that the knowledge doesn’t seem to be public, if we have it at all, but has no one ever figured it out? 

“Hikaru, why haven’t you learned magic?” I ask.

“…Um…because it’s magic?” She asks. 

I glare at her.

“I don’t have the faintest idea how I’d begin approaching that.” She shrugs, unfazed by my obvious irritation. “There aren’t any known users of magic within Lunarian borders. Nor are there any books that I’m aware of regarding the study of magic, even with my resources. At best, I’ve heard mere tidbits.” 

I frown, dissatisfied. “So there’s no way to learn except to go there, then?”

She laughs. “It isn’t like you can just walk in there. The border is secured for obvious reasons, and invasion is an act of war. In fact, once you get promoted to fourth-star, you’ll be eligible for border patrol missions, as well.” 

“And no one’s figured it out? How to use magic?” 

Hikaru shrugs. “We’ve captured mages before. We just haven’t learned anything useful enough to reconstruct the process. Apparently there’s some form of necessary ritual, and there’s a bunch of other restrictions, as well. No one’s ever been able to make a wand meaningfully react to them, nor any of the other implements they use for their magic.” 

“…A ritual, huh?” I mutter. 

“Yes. Speaking of which, Yuki, has Setsuna made progress on her end of the tantric ritual?”

That’s right. Setsuna’s still working on a way to enable herself to perform in a tantric ritual — after all, it’s meant to work between two Users of the opposite sex. With the way her body is, the ritual will fail since she can’t really assimilate the qi into her body, nor can she naturally absorb it. It would be like me throwing raw qi at her face — not useful at best, and dangerous at worst. 

“A bit.” I reply. “She’s still working on it, but it’s hard. She’s hit a block on it, last I’ve checked, and needs some kind of breakthrough.” 

She clicks her tongue. “If it’s the same thing she’s stuck on when she last talked about it me, it’ll be a while.”

“Why? What’s the problem?”

“The usual conceptual problem. Making her a User.” 

How infuriating. The tantric ritual is designed to make Setsuna a User, but also requires her to be a User. 

“We’ve exhausted the other possibilities that we know of, as well.” She says, sighing. “This might just not be possible with what we have.” 

Hikaru means well, I know, but hearing those words bothers me nonetheless. As if I’ve failed Setsuna, somehow. I can’t help but remember the pride on her face when she achieved second-star ranking, courtesy of Katsuo.

_ I want to help her achieve her dreams.  _

“I’m not going to give up.” I mutter.

The medic nods. “It’s what you want, so neither will I.” With an exasperated groan, she flicks her hand, sending all the tea utensils into the sink. 

“Catch.” 

I snatch the wine glass out of the air before it crashes against the wall behind me.

“What’s this for?” I ask curiously.

“Let’s drink. It’s about time I’ve told you some of the stuff I haven’t wanted to speak of.” 

I blink, rummaging through my memory…

_ ‘How many apprentices have you bound to?’ _

_ ‘You’d be the only living one, of course. I can’t risk a cross.’ _

Losing a blood-bound apprentice…?

“Catch.”

A bottle of wine comes flying towards me, and I grab it as well and pour myself a glass.

“Have you ever had alcohol before?” She asks, once I throw the bottle back to her. Without waiting for my answer, she tips the bottle back and chugs a solid third of the remainder.

“…No, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t how you’re supposed to go about it.” 

Without waiting for her response, I tip the glass into my mouth.

Fruity. A little tart. Not bad, I guess.

“Ah, whatever.” She says, wiping her mouth ungracefully. “It’s all the same, anyways.”

I’m pretty sure that’s not true, but whatever. 

“Well, where do I get started? Mm…well, I did have an apprentice before, one I’d bound to. As you can guess, they’re dead now. Her name…”

A long swig follows this. I’m more than a little concerned — my master’s hands are shaking substantially, something I’ve never seen before. She grimaces as the now-empty bottle clatters onto the table in front of her. 

“Aiko. Her name was Aiko.” 

“What happened to her?” I ask, when it’s clear that Hikaru needs the prodding.

“She was…on the wrong end of an assassination mission. I was with her, but that didn’t deter the attackers. You see, Aiko was  _ good _ . No aberration, but the most gifted Earth User I’ve ever seen in my life.” 

That means a lot coming from someone like Hikaru, a ninth-star ninja. 

“It’s not like she was a Spellweaver, don’t get me wrong. But I think she could’ve been, given more time. Her ability to manipulate her element…Yuki, it was nearly as natural as yours.” 

Huh. For someone to manipulate an affinity like a natural aberration — that  _ is _ incredible.

“But…point is, Aiko had been a rising star, so they didn’t underestimate her. This is when I was a fresh seventh-star ninja. I’d only been with her for…officially, two weeks, but in actuality, closer to three years.”

I wince. That’s far longer than I’ve known Mari, yet I know that I’d be quite troubled if she went and died. 

“And she had just become a fourth-star ninja.” Hikaru murmurs. “But already, she had a seventh-star mastery over Earth.”

That’s amazing.

“The enemy were four seventh-star ninja, one with a particularly strong Fire affinity. They intercepted us on a mission. I don’t know how. But…we tried to get away, but they were just too powerful. They…”

Wordlessly, Hikaru stands up, using her Wind Mastery to rip another bottle towards her. Uncorking it effortlessly, she takes another massive swig. 

“Are you sure you want to tell me this, Master?” I ask softly. 

“…There’s a lesson you need to learn, Yuki, before you learn it the way I do.” 

I fall silent as she takes another deep gulp. 

“Her death…wasn’t easy. That Fire User I mentioned, he…he burned her alive.” 

I flinch harshly. The words remind me of what I’d done to Akane Akiyama. I haven’t lost any sleep over it, but…

And, moreover, imagining Hikaru watch helplessly as her pupil, no, her blood-bound apprentice was effectively tortured to death in front of her…

“After, they turned to me.” Hikaru’s gaze grows dark. “I’ll spare you the details of what exactly they did to me. But…my aberration evolved that day, too. Remember how I mentioned that I couldn’t heal others with my aberration until I learned to care about them?”

“…I do.”

“…Guess what form my aberration took when I wanted nothing more than everyone to  **die?** ” 

“Decay.” 

That’s right. Regeneration is the regrowth of what previously existed. The opposite of that…? 

**Death.**

“It wasn’t hard to put them down for good. After that? Well, the same way your Ice Nature can taint your Wind…my Decay Nature can taint my Water.” 

The inherent lethality of something like that…

She smiles sadly. “I crippled something of myself that day, too. I’m not sure if I regret it or not. Because of what I channeled, I…destroyed my ability to ever bear children.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

“My aberration isn’t Regeneration.” Hikaru says quietly. “It’s never been. That would make no sense. Every other Aberration…is natural. Ice, Lightning, Storm…My real Aberration is Life. It’s why I can absorb Etheria with such relative ease, even accounting for my regeneration. It’s why I can do these rituals with you, to manipulate Etheria. And it’s why I can both heal a person from the absolute brink of death…and make a person wither away. ‘Goddess of Mercy’, I may be…but equally, I’m an ‘Angel of Death’, too. A Life Aberrant.” 

There’s a few moments of silence. She takes another swig from her bottle.

“…I can’t agree with that.” I finally reply. 

“What?” 

“You say you’re a ‘Goddess of Mercy’ and an ‘Angel of Death’ equally. Now that’s certainly not true — you’ve healed far too many people for that to be possible. Part-time death-bringer you may be, the same as all ninja, but unlike the vast majority of others, Hikaru, you’ve tried to bring good to this world, too.” 

She averts her gaze, brushing my words aside. “…After, I stopped being a ninja. I refused to go out. They tried to make me, of course, but I threatened suicide, so they backed off. I think I spent at least a year after that…just drifting around the village, burning my life away.” 

The bitter smile she wears leads me to wonder what exactly she means by that statement.

“Eventually, though, Katsuo convinced me that I could still help, even from inside the village. So I did. I dove into research, formalized a lot of the known theory on qi, revolutionized the way we think about healing…and here I am.” She chuckles harshly. “I’d been content to do that for the rest of my life, just being a recluse and some kind of dumb idol for the village, but then I met you and Sayaka.” 

I blink.

“Two kids, reading one of my books, talking knowledgeably on the subject, even…of course, I’ve taken on apprentices since Aiko, but I’ve never been willing to Vow to one since her. Not until you. Your particular situation…well, to be honest, I was going to use you to learn more about qi, but…”

“…But?” I ask. 

“…Your bond with Setsuna.” She exhales noisily. “With everything Katsuo’s done for me…if I’d turned and destroyed a bond like that, I’d have never been able to look him in the eye again.”

“I see.” I say, not sure how to reply to something like that. 

A knock on the door interrupts us. 

“Yo, Hikaru. Let me in.” Katsuo’s voice rings out.

I glance back, watching the contemplative look on my master’s face fade away to a soft smile. 

“Come in, Takeshi Katsuo.” 

My handler lets himself inside, looking mildly annoyed. “You know, I swear I’ve already told you that you don’t have to — and you started drinking without me, too? Also, good evening, Yuki. I see she’s started you on the alcohol early.”

I shrug, still holding the mostly-full wine glass. “I guess.”

“Hey, if you’re going to waste that, give it to me.” Hikaru says from behind me. Without looking, I toss the container up behind me, and am unsurprised to hear her catch it without spilling a drop, a flicker of qi alerting me to a usage of Wind. 

“Leaving already, Yuki?” Katsuo asks, helping himself to a glass of his own. 

“Yes.” I say, without elaborating further. Then, as I walk past him— 

“Take care of her, would you?” I whisper. 

He snorts, not bothering to answer that. “See you tomorrow.” 

“Yup. See you.” I glance at Hikaru, the black-haired woman still smiling gently at her closest friend. “Until next time…master.”

“Don’t call me that!”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this, you can now read Defiance in its entirety with zero spoilers! What's Defiance, you might ask? One of the spin-off stories I've written in the world of Spellborne, and completely canonical! It's all about Hikaru as a kid and goes through some of the things that helped shape her into who she is.


	54. (3.4.8) Encroaching Shadows, Closing

#  **3.4.8 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Encroaching Darkness, Closing (??? POV)**

“Man…I’m bored.” 

I stare blankly into the distance, watching the sun throw out pale reds, warm oranges, and bright yellows. It’s a beautiful sight, enough to draw my attention for a little bit. 

“Leona! Get down here!” 

I just…eh, I don’t really want to go down and interact with my peers. They’re boring, too, and so very two-faced, except for my friends.

All of this. Training as a Mage Knight. Talking to people my age. Going to school.

Boring.

I tilt my head up into the sky, blowing a wave of white sparkles out of my mouth. The magic glitters because I want it to. In a sense, with enough power, I could have anything I want. 

Boring.

I’m tired of being so ‘gifted’. I want challenge. I want to be motivated, to be pushed to my very limits. 

I want to be _mediocre_. 

It’s a strange dream…but to be mediocre would involve me being surrounded by truly talented people. But I’m not going to find that with these people. 

“You have five seconds!” 

No, if I want that kind of excitement…well, it’ll probably be across the border. 

“Three!”

What if I had been born a ‘ninja’? That’d be pretty cool, I bet. Anything different from staying here and doing…nothing. 

“Two! One!”

Looking down at where my mother’s standing, thirty meters below me (geez, she sure can yell) I spread my arms and leap off the rooftop. 

If only…

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm...who's this?


	55. (3.5.1) Interlude 1, Chapter Hikaru

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the first Interlude Arc! Each one has a chapter from the main cast. This one is Chapter Hikaru, so it's her POV for this one! These will be shorter chapters that serve as a gap between a time-skip -- in this case, it's the skip from 3.4 to the Fourth Star Examination in 3.6!

# 3.5.1 Spellborne — Book 1 

# Interlude 1, Chapter Hikaru

“Hikaru.”

“Yes?” I look up from my books at my favorite apprentice.

“What was your Fourth-Star Examination like?”

“Oh? You didn’t tell me you’d taken up an interest in history.” I say with a gentle smile on my face as I arrange my thoughts.

He smiles. “I suppose that is one way to put it.” 

I roll my eyes, taking a sip of tea to give myself a little more time. “My Fourth-Star Examination? Well…a lot bloodier, certainly. The trauma medics we have in today’s times are far better now than they used to be.”

“Courtesy of you?” He asks. I pat him on the head, making him roll his eyes. 

“Smart boy.” 

“Other than that…? Well, it used to be one battle, not three. And—“ I cut myself off, realizing that I’m about to give away confidential information. “Well, it made things shorter. Things weren’t as peaceful as they are now, so they wanted people to be promoted faster so they could be qualified to take more dangerous missions.”

“Peaceful?” Yuki asks, surprised. “We regularly combat other ninja in opposing missions and fight to death or capture.” 

I shrug. “And? Do you see them lining up at our walls, trying to siege us down?”

He blinks. “I…suppose not.”

“Exactly. Thanks to a national treaty signed…hm, about thirty years before I was born, mission conflicts and most of the consequences that result aren’t acts of war.”

“…But…that’s dumb as hell.” Yuki says disbelievingly. “Why would — if people — why was this treaty signed?”

“Because Arcacia.” I lecture him. “The First Arcacian War was sufficient to stop the states of Lunaria from a state of constant, tumultuous combat, and band together to fight a common enemy.”

“Arcacia…” He muses. 

“What do you know about the place?” I ask curiously. 

“Magic.” He says flatly. “Other than that, only a few basic details. Arcacia is huge, bigger than all of Lunaria combined.”

“That’s true. What else?”

“…Not much.” He admits. “Basic geographical information, but in our history classes, I tended to do more interesting and practical things.” 

I wag a finger at him. “Bad dog.” He snorts, amused. “If anything, at least keep track of our neighbors. You don’t know if they’ll ever be enemies.” 

“I know plenty about our non-magical neighbors.” Yuki retorts. “It’s the magical ones I’m less sure of. There’s not as much information in the library, compared to our neighbors.”

“Get promoted, then.” I say, smiling. “Fourth-star ninja have access to things that lower ninja do not.” 

He rolls his eyes and sighs exasperatedly, but doesn’t contest my point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's why Team Steel's decision to kill a bunch of ninjas from somewhere else didn't have serious ramifications! Yuki didn't think about that possibility, but he probably should have!


	56. (3.5.2) Interlude 1, Chapter Setsuna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder:  
> Potentia -- physical energy  
> Psychia -- spiritual energy  
> Etheria -- life energy

#  **3.5.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Interlude 1, Chapter Setsuna**

I pant, exhausted, as my latest attempt sucks me dry.

Long ago, I’d devised a method to control physical energy and learned how to release it into my body, helping to close the gap between me and others. Physically speaking, I’m much frailer than other ninja. Without having the benefits of a body developed with active, controllable qi, I’m just weaker. But being able to store it changes things. It doesn’t make me strong, but it makes me stronger. At least, I can go temporarily toe-to-toe with someone like Yuki, even overwhelming him at some points. 

…Well, I think I can, anyways. Something tells me that if he was willing to use all his strength, I wouldn’t stand a chance in a straight power test, no matter how gratifying it is to see him dodging away from one of my power strikes.

Physical energy, Potentia, is easy to control. It’s like strength. It hurts, sometimes, sure, but it isn’t too hard. No, it’s the spiritual element, Psychia, the intent and imagination, that throws me off. If Potentia is like harnessing lightning, manipulating Psychia is like controlling the concept of being shocked. It’s horribly intangible, hard to define, let alone control. 

But still, I’ve managed to do it. I’ve even managed to Awaken my first element despite near-zero formal instruction on it. Two years. Two full years of hard work, with _my_ levels of control. My seal system collects Potentia with relative ease. But Psychia flows in and out of me, nearly impossible to do anything at all. Imagine trying to use the ambient air for a technique.

I grit my teeth, trying again. The laborious, exhausting process of gathering Psychia to me, molding it with my Potentia. It takes over ten minutes, but when I feel as though I’m ready, I release the technique, and it blossoms into a spell. A tiny ball of flames erupts over my palm, warm and comforting. Despite a complete lack of protection, the fire doesn’t burn at all. 

I smile gleefully, manipulating my qi to make the flames curl around my palm. It’s clear to me that control isn’t my problem. It’s just power. It’s nearly impossible to shape any kind of technique at all when I’m using a tiny fraction of the Psychia necessary to actually make the technique work.

I’m almost there. It won’t be ready for the Examination, nor for months after that, but…I’ll do it. I can do this. 

_I can be a ninja._

And then...my dream...

  
  



	57. (3.5.3) Interlude 1, Chapter Mari

#  **3.5.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Interlude 1, Chapter Mari**

**“Volt Line.”**

The purest expression of the Storm that rages inside me, Volt Line. Nothing more than a simple, single catastrophic blow, one that can bring the mountains themselves crashing down. As my qi builds up into a crescendo, I can feel it, the Storm blazing through my veins, **roaring** with power. With practiced ease, I deflect it, never trying to stop it, merely directing it down the paths of my body. 

It hurts. It hurts so very much, like **my body is tearing itself apart.** It always does, whenever I channel my power. But I’ve long since learned…how to cope with the pain. How to use it. Even a pain that should cripple a person can be ignored, if one comes to experience it enough. A pain that should **destroy someone’s mind** …becomes easier and easier to comprehend, to withstand.

I don’t drive the punch into anything. It would be obliterated. Instead, I lash out high into the sky, over a cliff that faces nothing of importance, the treetops dozens of meters below. A sharp, piercing crack screams through the air, a massive gust rippling out from the force of my punch. Leaves and branches are torn off and hurled into the air, a veritable torrent of greenery filling the skies for a brief moment before falling back to earth. 

I cringe as the backlash ripples through my hand and arm, causing minor fractures throughout. Volt Line isn’t meant to be used without hitting anything. Rather, it is designed to crush the target in a single, overwhelming blow. Then the second, far sharper pain from taxing my element that much arrives, causing me to collapse to my knees, since I’m not in the heat of battle.

“Here.” A voice says, Yuki’s voice, as he rests his hand on my outstretched fist. Moments later, I can feel the gentle coolness of his qi run down my skin, fixing the damage that I’ve done to myself. 

“So? Did that help?” I ask, panting slightly from the pain. 

“It did.” He says, eyes alight with rare emotion. Well, emotion beyond the typical muted spectrum both Yuki and Setsuna seem to showcase more often than not. “Thanks, Mari.”

Apparently, Yuki wants a technique that involves mass destruction. It’s something I’m…pretty good at, to say the least, so I decided to lend my assistance. Or, well, I tried. All of my powerful techniques involve Storm, after all, which isn’t exactly something he can use. Eventually, he asked to see Volt Line. Not really having a reason to refuse, I said yes. Of course, I’m not going to hit something anywhere near the village with that technique, or it’ll be destroyed, along with everything in the vicinity. And I had to hold back substantially, of course. Otherwise I’d mess myself up all for nothing. 

I have no idea what he’ll do with having seen the technique, or even if I’ve actually helped, but he seems satisfied, going lost in thought like he usually does. He’s probably okay.

A grin makes its way to my face. 

_He’ll figure something out. I’m sure of it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's one of the costs of Mari's powerful Storm Aberration.


	58. (3.5.4) Interlude 1, Chapter Sayaka

#  **3.5.4 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Interlude 1, Chapter Sayaka**

“Ah…this is nice.” 

Arms out, legs splayed, kind of like a starfish. It’s pretty cool, I guess. Totally relaxed, totally free. A little chilly, but that’s not really a problem for someone with any qi control at all. I kind of like this. It’s a good date spot, I suppose, if I ever cared enough about someone else to take them out on one. 

I shake my head, clearing those thoughts. They’re interesting, but not especially useful right now. Not what I need. 

I know I’m ready for the Fourth Star Examination. The ribbon in my hair proves it, after all, and it was so very satisfying to see the surprise on passerby’s faces when they saw me wearing the damn thing. Perhaps they hadn’t expected to see someone so young wearing one of those. 

I breathe out a heavy sigh. 

I’m ready for the Fourth Star Examination, but…am I really ready to beat _him_?

The thought trails away to be replaced by a pleasant emptiness. Up here, I don’t have to worry about any of that. Just the pleasant feeling of the breeze, drifting around me…the warmth of the sun, the serenity of the clouds…

“You’re here again, young lady?” A tired, but firm voice says. Groaning, I lazily turn my head to glance at the man floating in the air.

Daisuke Hirakaze. I’d met him a few days ago, the first time I’d done this. Without fail, after a few minutes of enjoying my peace he’s always come up to find me. At first he had been stern, but upon realizing my benign intentions, seems to regard me now with some form of amusement. 

He’s a grey-haired man with very short hair, clearly balding. That being said, however, the rest of his body is clearly fit, and there’s a cheery, mirthful look in his eyes. 

For all that, though, he’s a ninja who’s managed to reach old age. I’ve no doubt that the man has hidden depths. Literally — the man gives off zero presence, which would be an indication of weakness if he wasn’t up here with me. It’s not exactly easy to get this high up. 

“Guess I am.” I say listlessly. “Here to interrupt my peace and quiet again?”

“Guess I am.” He parrots, looking terribly amused with himself. “You’re hardly the first troubled young lady I’ve forced conversation on, after all.”

I roll my eyes, making sure he sees the gesture. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to damper his spirits in the slightest.

“Why do you keep coming here?” He asks, when it becomes obvious that I won’t talk unless forcefully prodded.

“The peace and quiet.” I snark before realizing that the words are more truthful than I meant them to be. 

Up here, it feels like all of my worries just…float away. It’s a small comfort, but, eh. Everything in my life is small comforts and work, basically. 

“Is that so?” He asks. “I dare say there are other places that could offer you a similar comfort.” 

“None are as free as this one. And I get away from others and relax by myself.” I retort easily. He raises an eyebrow at the double meaning, but doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that. I turn my head back up. 

“You really don’t strike me as the kind of kid that wants to stay alone too long, though.” His insightful words make me twitch. 

How does this complete stranger read me with such ease?

“I suppose not.” I say blandly instead, taking a page out of Yuki’s book. He snorts.

“You aren’t much of an actor, either.” 

I glance at him. “If I had the ninja experience necessary to become a Spellweaver, I’m sure I’d be a better one.” 

That’s right. This stupid old man is a Spellweaver, a tenth-star caster. His particular element, obviously, is of Wind. Alune’s Wind Spellweaver, one of three total Spellweavers in the village. A particularly renowned ninja, too, now sort of retired.

I’d respect him, but…the aforementioned description applies.

“You’ll get it one day, girl.” He says, looking mildly unamused. “If it’s _really_ what you want.” 

My eyes narrow at his implication.

“Are you suggesting that I might turn away from being a ninja?” I ask, appalled. 

Steely blue eyes meet my own, sharp ice against burning sapphire. 

“If you know what’s good for you.” 

I turn away violently from the man. 

“…You have no idea what you’re saying to me.”

“You have nothing else lined up, do you?” He asks sharply.

I stiffen.

“Your type never does. Geniuses at your age, geniuses with the drive to match it. You chase after being a ninja, because it’s all you’ve ever known. The thought of quitting or slowing down is unthinkable, because you’ve always prided yourself on being the best. Eventually your spark burns out and you either fall apart…or you die.” 

“…Then…” I growl. “I’d rather go out in a blaze of glory than become a bitter old man like you.” 

He laughs, a rusty sort of sound that grates on my ears a little. “We’ll see how long that remains the case.” 

I flip him off, irritated that he’s just brushed my words off when I already know that his words will linger in my dreams. As usual.

“Anyways, it’s about time you get down from here, isn’t it?” He asks, a smug grin on his face. “Whatever you’re chasing, it won’t wait. If you don’t keep that drive of yours, you’ll be left behind, and that’s the last thing someone like you wants, I bet.” 

I don’t bother to respond. We both know he’s right, after all. No matter how much I hate that this stupid old man was able to so cleanly dissect my character with only a few encounters…I can’t deny that he knows what he’s talking about. 

Bastard. 

Flipping him off again, I take control of the currents around me and descend, letting myself free-fall through the sky.

Figures that I could only find peace a few thousand meters above the surface. 

_Well, until it was ruined, anyways._

I hate that guy. 


	59. (3.5.5) Interlude 1, Chapter Yuki

# 3.5.5 Spellborne — Book 1 

# Interlude 1, Chapter Yuki

“Two weeks…” 

I turn my head to glance at Setsuna from my position on the ground, exhausted after our training. “Until our examination?” 

“…Yep.” She yawns tiredly. 

I smile. In the time since that assassination mission, Setsuna and I have made a lot of progress. I’m confident that we’re both easily strong enough to be fourth-star ninja, now. And I’m certainly not worried about either of our theoretical performances. Setsuna’s a very clever girl, just quiet.

In other words, we’re as ready as we’ll be. Now, it’s time to polish our performances and get ready to put on a show. 

A shadow looms above us.

“Hey, Mari.” I greet. Setsuna lazily waves from the other side of me. 

“Come on, it’s only ten in the morning! Where’s your energy at?” 

I glare at her, deadpan. “It left when Katsuo made us fight you at full power.” 

The Storm User grins. “That was just a little warm-up for me! You two are real good together, but you can’t get me quite yet!” 

Our teamwork has only gotten better than ever. At this point, we’ve successfully completed over eight missions, difficulty typically hovering around the fourth-star level. The assassination mission, though, remains the most challenging one to date. 

I’ve earned a fifth-star ribbon for Wind Mastery, and a fourth-star ribbon for Water Mastery. I haven’t put much effort into the other two besides lowering the time to affinity shift to them to thirty seconds. They are generally less versatile elements, in my opinion, although Fire might be worth picking up later.

Setsuna picked up her third-star promotion from Katsuo a week ago, and has further improved her battlefield sealing. For some reason, though, she’s reluctant to go into any details. 

Ah, well. 

…

“That’s right, today is the day…” 

Today is the day that Aiko died in front of my Master. 

Hikaru is clearly on her way to getting intoxicated, if not flat-out drunk. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the woman has a high alcohol tolerance, but even that seems to be strained by the sheer amount of alcohol the woman’s drunk — at least, judging by the dozens of empty bottles on the ground. 

Also unsurprising is the fact that Katsuo’s here with her, a glass held in his hand as well. He looks far more alert, though — in fact, he’s the one who’s opened the door. 

“Afternoon, Yuki. Here to mourn?”

There’s a light warning in his voice, if an unnecessary one. I might be a cold person, but I understand Hikaru’s desire to grieve. 

I shake my head. “Here to check on my master and mentor.” 

After a moment’s consideration, he nods. “You may want to come later, then, as I don’t believe she…possesses the ability to recognize anyone right now.” 

“That bad?” I wince.

He nods. “Go. She wouldn’t want you to see her like this.” 

After a moment’s thought, I nod. “You and her, huh?”

His gaze grows dangerous. “Clarify.” 

“You two…are like Setsuna and I.” 

What did he say, that night so long ago?

‘Because I understand. If someone had fucked with Hikaru that way…I wish I could have done the same as you.’

I understand now that this statement was a lie. Someone had hurt Hikaru, hurt her so much that she’d attempt to drown the day out completely, years after the fact. Someone as strong as her.

And Katsuo couldn’t do anything to protect her. Regrets the fact, even. And he wants me to avoid making that mistake. 

I think I understand now. 

Without another word, I turn away, and he watches me go. 

From one partner to another. We understand. 

…

“Sorry, Yuki…You were looking for me yesterday, I hear?”

“Ah, nothing important, master.” I deflect. “Just another delivery.”

Hikaru’s eyes glimmer with interest. “Ah, the book I’ve been waiting for? Come in, Yuki.” 

The second the door closes, she drops the facade and becomes serious.

“Something important?” She asks. “Let’s head down, then.”

I nod, and we descend into the secret basement once more. 

“So? What’s up?” She asks immediately. Any trace that she was guzzling alcohol last night is gone, and in that empty woman’s place is the serious visage of my master.

“I’ve finally completed it.” 

“Oooh.” She looks intrigued. “I’ve been looking forward to this. I don’t think anyone’s created a hand-to-hand form quite like this — at least, not that I’ve ever seen.”

Gale Stance, Form Three.

“Well…about that.” I say, rubbing my head. “It isn’t…well, I can’t strictly call it a purely hand-to-hand form anymore. More like...ECQC.” 

Hikaru blinks. “This…this I’ve got to see. Alright, let’s go then.” 

“…Wait, you want me to fight now?” I ask.

“Sure. I want to see it, after all.”

I nod, then touch the seals at my waist. Two swords deposit themselves into my hands, and I slowly move into a basic stance.

She raises a delicate eyebrow. “Why, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you wield two blades. You have my interest.” 

“…I know you can technically survive it, Hikaru, but if you value your body remaining in one piece, you should prepare yourself.” 

Her eyebrow raises further. “Hm…alright.”

Wind hums around her hands and forearms, and her aura abruptly spikes as she floods her body with energy. 

It’s good that she’s taking me seriously. I wasn’t messing around when I warned her of the lethality of my technique. It’s something I’ve refused to train with Setsuna or Mari, despite my ability to heal them from virtually any wound.

Form Two, maybe. But Form Three? I could kill them completely on accident. 

I’ve only consulted with Katsuo due to his expertise with weaponry. He gave me some much needed intensive training with dual-wielding, and helped me perfect my abilities — all outside of typical team training, at that. 

It’s about time I had a real close-combat style. Form One is an excellent starting point, but it’s not nearly as effective as this. Now, I really can call myself a close-mid range specialist.

“Ready?” I ask, engaging my Veil. The enhanced concentration is necessary for me to keep up with myself. 

She shrugs. “I’m not getting any younger—“

Two quick dual diagonal slashes, down and up and out, sends four sharp crescents of Wind energy towards Hikaru. That isn’t even close to all, though — I follow through to point them behind me. Seamlessly, Wind blasts out from the tip of the blades, sending me racing behind my fast-moving projectiles. 

Hikaru carelessly bats the crescents away before starting to deflect my blades as they come screaming in, blood splattering into the air. My blades have managed to cut through her Wind defenses, although the wounds are light and won’t slow someone like Hikaru down for even a moment. 

Undeterred, I begin moving in earnest, raining slashes upon Hikaru. Taking a step forward for every step she gives, I force a constant barrage of Wind-enhanced slashes upon her in a lethal, well-practiced dance. 

Even as her blood makes the ground slick, she yawns. “If this is all you’ve got, it’s very impressive, but—“ 

As she deflects another strike with the palm of her hand, I abruptly slam the blade down, empowered by a burst of energy from the tip. 

Hikaru’s left hand is sent skittering away, dismembered at the wrist.

“Huh.” She doesn’t even have the decency to wince, casually deflecting the follow-up strike as her bloodied limb shrouds itself in pink qi. “Alright, not bad—“ 

“Tempest Blade!”

The output of my other blade abruptly triples, a drill of Wind leaping off the tip of my sword and catching her in the stomach. The force is enough to bend her over, but she moves with the motion and tags me with a light jab almost faster than I can see—

“Gh!” The hit crushes my right shoulder, rendering the arm totally useless. Realizing that I’m at a substantial disadvantage now, I jump back. 

“Any normal person would have been shoved away.” I mutter sullenly.

Hikaru smiles darkly. “I’m not concerned about your capabilities against normal opponents.” Flexing her newly-regrown hand, her grin widens. “C’mon, Yuki. Show me what you’ve got—“

“Breaker!” 

My foot stomps down forcefully as I slash with both blades, momentarily trading reinforcement for pure qi output. Wind erupts from the weapons and crushes Hikaru against the back of the room. 

A moment later, I lunge with the enhanced speed granted by my style and impale her with both swords through the stomach.

“…Wow, that was brutally lethal.” Hikaru says. To my irritation, she doesn’t even sound winded, despite the massive gaping wounds in her stomach. 

“There’s a reason I don’t practice this style against Mari and Setsuna.” I say, deactivating the technique and sliding my blades out of my master. 

She arches an eyebrow. “Like…because of the way you dice yourself up, as well?”

“Huh?” I ask, slipping out of the Veil. Immediately, the pain of a dozen self-inflicted cuts make themselves known. “Oh, this.”

Hikaru blinks. “You’re aware?”

I give her a scathing look. “Of course I am. My own Wind abilities counters my self-reinforcement, so if those blades get anywhere close to me, I’ll get cut, too.” 

Reinforcement is very good for blunt blows and weaker piercing and cutting attacks. It’s not nearly as effective against something like a Wind-empowered cutting attack, for example. 

“Fix that.” Hikaru admonishes. “Any effort you spend towards regeneration is something that can be avoided through more skillful application of your qi, and mastery over your own blades.” 

“Yes, Master.” I agree. Without any apparent effort on her part, her wounds have already healed.

“The wounds weren’t too deep, though.” The medic says. “You probably aren’t that far off. Your Wind Mastery is still at fifth-star, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” I admit. “I haven’t made significant progress with my flight at all. I’m still working on the control necessary.”

“You polish this up, and this would get you sixth-star. Easily.” 

“Huh.” I mutter. “Well, the examination’s in two weeks, anyways. I’ll just…have to surprise them a little, won’t I?”

Hikaru smiles. “Do it, Yuki.”

…

“Come here, Yuki.” Katsuo says gruffly after training, three days before the examination. 

“Huh? What’s up?” I ask, motioning Setsuna to go on ahead.

“Since you’ve finally got down your close-range style, Hikaru asked me to make these for you.” Pulling out a scroll from somewhere behind him, he tosses it to me. “Enjoy.”

My eyes widen. “Are these—“ 

“Swords? Yes. Bind them to you with your qi.” 

Almost reverently, I unseal the set of blades. And blink.

“Why are they black?” 

He shrugs. “Personal preference. It was a pain in the ass learning how to make black steel…but so worth it. It doesn’t add anything special, minus the benefits of being true-forged steel.” 

I have to suppress a whimper of excitement. It’s basically impossible to get your hands on true-forged steel because the only ones who can produce them are Steel Aberrants and Earth Spellweavers, or people on their level of Earth manipulation. And even that takes years of practice, once you get to that level.

Simple enhanced steel, aka false-forged steel, is merely stronger, more resistant, less vulnerable to corruption and rust…basically, better in every way. To create it, one must simply add an extra step of infusing qi during the forging process. Not too complex — weapons created with it aren’t especially uncommon, simply expensive. They also carry qi better than other metals, making them an ideal material for primary weapons. 

True qi-forged steel has all of these benefits, but are much more durable than even false blades. It’s because, to make a permanent construct out of one’s qi, one has to infuse a not insignificant portion of Etheria into it, which has the side effect of dramatically enhancing the durability of the blade. 

On top of that, the swords are naturally even more resonant to qi as a result of the method of manufacturing. 

On the downside, they don’t like to bend very much. This would ordinarily make them more brittle, but Etheria laughs at simple physics. That being said, it does mean a lot more force travels into the hands upon blocking and hitting — something that can mostly be mitigated with proper reinforcement, though. 

Hesitating for a moment, I pick up the beautiful blades, Katsuo taking the scroll back. They’re amazing works, simple and undecorated, but their weight, their balance…I take a few practice swings. These are a masterwork, created by a master swordsman. 

My own blade had felt good, but this? These feel like a natural extension of my body.

“Key your qi into them.” He orders.

I flood my qi into the blades without a second thought. It feels almost as if the swords are pulling the qi from me. 

When I’m satisfied, I take a deep breath and bring the swords crashing down. 

“…Gods above.”

…

I crash my blades against Mari’s spear. Apparently I wasn’t the only one to receive a gift from Katsuo, but hers is suited more towards channelling electricity. Fitting. 

…It is also black. 

With the leverage of both swords, I’m able to force her back a single step, but wind up needing to back away and deflect Setsuna’s slash at me. 

…Another black sword. 

Setsuna has become quite the swordswoman, but still can’t handle me alone. To compensate for this, Katsuo sicced Mari on me, too. 

But even so— 

After a dozen quick slashes, the two girls fall back, blood dripping down their arms. 

Mari is a berserker of a fighter, while Setsuna is far more oriented around technique and skill. By moving to place Mari between us as much as possible, I can force the sealer out of the fight as she aims to maneuver around her. Even though the numbers are against me, with nothing more than reinforcement and skillful swordsmanship, I can force a nearly even fight. 

With my reinforcement and skill advantage, I can defeat even Mari. At least, if we bar external expression of qi. 

Now, I’m confident I can hold my own in close combat. Even Hikaru, with the boost granted to her by her Etheria and with the edge of over a dozen years of experience on me (as rusty as she is) can no longer stop me when I go all-out, not without reinforcement of her own. 

Katsuo can still take me with ease, but that man’s honed his swordsmanship and close-combat abilities to a razor’s edge over twenty-plus years of being a ninja. Gale Stance or not, I can’t expect to beat someone like that.

Mari going all-out would still kick my ass, but it would be far closer than a fight in close range between us three months ago.

And that’s not to mention all of the other tricks I’ve picked up, either.

The Storm User grins, almost savagely. “You sure look confident.” 

I smile. “I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when Hikaru cut off Yuki's limbs for research purposes back in 3.1? ...Yeah, she's not a stranger to that.


	60. (3.5.6) Interlude 1, Closing

#  **3.5.6 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Interlude 1, Closing (???’s POV)**

“Are they prepared?” 

“Absolutely. I think they’ll make quite the splash.” 

“Good. There have been quite a few requests for the Storm girl. It’s taken a lot of political maneuvering to give you the environment you wanted. Your kids are far more free than others like them.” 

“And I’ve shown you their progress, haven’t I?”

“You’ve given me two major results. Everything else has been free.” 

“Results, huh…? We can give you that. The upcoming war should give them plenty of chances to prove themselves.”

“You shouldn’t know about that yet.” 

“Any Elite worth their salt ought to be plenty aware. Have you not noticed how much more use the training zones are seeing? And even Miss White has been starting to gear up her production. I hear she’s scouting for an apprentice.” 

“Oh? Will you be putting up your little sealer pet for auction?”

“She’s not quite at that point yet. Perhaps soon.”

“And the last one?”

“Hikaru’s apprentice? He’ll certainly make some waves. He has…perhaps a year left. Maybe less.”

“A year before what? Ah, the approximate projection for the upcoming war.” 

“Yes. I think that the following events will be…quite illuminating.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you in 3.6 -- the Fourth Star Examination arc!


	61. (3.6.1) Fourth Star Examination, Part 1

#  **3.6.1 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Fourth Star Examination, Part 1**

“Here we are.” I murmur. Setsuna walks next to me, an introspective look on her face. 

In front of us is our assigned Testing Center. It consists of three main sections: an administrative section, the smallest building; the theoretical room, not much larger; and the practical room, which utterly dwarfs the other two, a massive stone-and-metal construction with seals written in strategic places with room for multiple arenas. 

“Are you ready, Yuki?” Setsuna asks. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I reply, shrugging. “I’m strong enough to get promoted, but anything could happen. How about you?”

In lieu of her answering, though, I’m surprised to feel her arms wrap around me. 

“Good luck, Yuki. Whatever happens…I just want you to know that I care about you.”

“Huh?” 

She doesn’t reply, instead skipping ahead to slip into the Testing Center.

Well, weird. Alright, then. Deciding to dismiss her strange behavior, I follow my partner into the Center.

…

The theoretical portion of the exam is simple. Analysis of battle situations, a relatively simple general knowledge examination. It takes under an hour, and I’m positive I’ve aced it.

“You are cleared to proceed to the next phase of the examination.” My stone-faced proctor says. 

“Understood.”

“Head to the main building, and wait in room 219 for further instructions.”

I do.

“Good, you’ve made it too.” Mari says, meeting me at the front door. “I would have been so disappointed if either of my teammates hadn’t made it past the theoretical parts.”

“Like you almost didn’t?” I ask, smirking. She flips me off. 

“And now I’m a seventh star!”

“Provisional.”

She grins. “Not for long. Go get’em, captain.” 

I roll my eyes. “Yes, ma’am.” 

Waving lazily behind me, I make my way into my assigned hallway. Surprisingly enough, I recognize someone who’s just exiting their room—

“Ooh. This’ll be interesting.” 

Sayaka smirks at me from across the hallway. 

“I suppose we’ll see.” I say evenly, bumping her hip with my own as she strides past me. 

“See you in round two.” 

“…Wait, what?”

She just flashes her trademark smirk at me as she disappears around the corner.

…

Fifteen minutes of meditation later, I’m called out of my trance by the same proctor from before.

“Your first match will begin in three minutes. Here is the information you are allotted.”

“Right, thank you.” I accept the papers.

First off is a brief report on myself. I assume the opponent I’m fighting against will receive something like this. 

**Yuki — Front-Line Specialist**

CQC: 5.5*

Ninja Arts: 5* 

Special: **Wind** 5* **Water** 4* **Healing** 6* 

Strength: 4.5*

Speed: 5.5*

Stamina: 6*

Intelligence: 6* 

Stealth: 4.5*

Overall Combat: 5.5*

Woah. Not bad at all. 

And my opponent…

 **Kazuhiro Aoki** — **Front-Line Specialist**

CQC: 6*

Ninja Arts: 4*

Special: **Fire** 6* 

Strength: 7*

Speed: 5* 

Stamina: 6*

Intelligence: 4.5*

Stealth: 4*

Overall Combat: 5.5*

Hm…that’s a problem. A powerful Fire User, close-combatant, durable, exceptionally strong but not particularly fast…?

_Alright, I have an idea. Perhaps several ideas._

There’s also some information on what to do after the match, which I promptly memorize.

“Time’s up. Please report to the arena promptly.”

“Yes.” 

I hand the man his papers back and make my way to the arena, thoughts whirling in my head.

…

“Would the two contestants make their way to the field?”

Without hesitation, I enter the arena from the hallway, taking in the terrain as fast as possible.

Huh. From what I can tell, it’s a similar format to the arena Mari fought in. Circular, with a middle lake, with a forest on the far side. This side, the entrance side, is mostly sand, dirt, and stone, providing easy visibility.

My opponent, a silent red-haired boy who seems to be a few years older than me, follows me to the center of the arena.

This must be Kazuhiro, then.

I regard him carefully as I walk across the lake, coming to a stop on the center and turning around. He doesn’t seem inclined to follow. 

_Close-combat expert for sure. Those muscles aren’t all for show, I imagine._

“You have ten minutes to subdue the enemy opponent, through knockout or surrender. Begin.”

Immediately, my opponent breathes out a substantial fireball, aiming to cook me alive. I pull on my qi and stomp on the lake, blasting a pillar of water into the air that easily absorbs it. 

Not done, I push out my hands, forming a compressed mini-vortex of water that I send flying towards the boy. He responds by jumping away — having anticipated this response, I hurl a tagged knife at him. 

He deflects it with a fire-swirled fist, but it simply erupts in his face, blasting a pool’s worth of water everywhere.

_Thanks, Setsuna._

Lunging forward in a spray of mist, I cover the gap, thrusting my hands out once more. Although it’s challenging to manipulate such a massive body of water from so far away, I’m able to direct the flow somewhat so that it washes over his head instead of merely going straight upward, sending him stumbling away.

Apparently infuriated, Kazuhiro shouts, and the water around him evaporates into steam. Shifting gears, I stop and plant my hands on the lake’s surface. 

Glaring angrily, he hurls a series of knives at my head. I lift a hand, revealing that I’ve gathered enough water to create a whip, and smack them out of the air from ten meters away.

Then I jump back and wait, preparing myself as I do.

Three seconds later, a massive torrent of fire erupts from Kazuhiro, flash-evaporating a decent amount of the lake. Surprisingly, the blast is so strong that it ignites the riverbank, sending trees up in flames.

Having retreated the second I saw him preparing, I’ve managed to escape the flames. However…

_He wanted me to be in here. Not good. This kind of closed area, with many obstacles and flammable materials, is exactly the kind of situation he’d prefer._

_Five seconds left, huh?_

_Well, that’s fine. If the terrain isn’t suitable…_

“Found you.” He snarls. I jump up, into a nearby tree branch, as he lunges towards me, his fist colliding heavily into the tree trunk.

_Zero._

“I suppose you have.” I say, unsealing one of the blades Katsuo gifted me. “Or, perhaps…” 

I lunge. 

“ _I’ve_ found _you._ ” 

If the terrain isn’t suitable, then _make_ it suitable.

_“Breaker!”_

…

With a burst of Wind, Kazuhiro’s blood splatters onto the ground, a sword-shaped hole through his stomach as he collapses to his knees. 

Reinforcement? Countered by Wind. Strength? Countered by superior mobility. Fire? Completely ignored thanks to a combination of mobility and the range of my blade, leaving me free to cut him to bits. There were a few unpleasant surprises, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop me from defeating him. 

_Fire is too one-dimensional of an element to pose serious risk to me. It isn’t something you can expect to work against a Wind and Water User. Perhaps a more advanced User might have been able to work something out, but…not this guy. He wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t nearly versatile enough. He couldn’t even force me to use Form Three, or even the advanced levels of Form Two._

“I surrender.” He says simply, voice even despite the significant stab wound. Nodding, I back away. 

“Winner, Yuki of Alune! Please report to your designated area.” 

Without further ado, I disarm myself and head up, electing to take the stairs. Apparently, there are two different balconies for the winners and the losers of the first round. 

“Nice match, Yuki.” Sayaka greets me, looking cheerful. She’s the only other person up here.

“Were you first?” I guess. “And thanks, I suppose.”

“Yep. Crushed my guy.” She smiles foxily. “Superior information, and all that.”

I blink. “That’s the second time you’ve alluded to having some kind of…oh, you sneaky bitch.” Sudden understanding flashes through my mind. 

_This must be why Setsuna’s been acting strangely as of late._

Well, now I have a pretty good guess of who my third match-up will be against. Huh.

The blunette giggles. “Honestly, I’m amazed that you, of all the people, couldn’t figure it out. We’re ninja. Of course we cheated. We were supposed to.”

_Oops. I haven’t been treating this examination as seriously as I should have. Good thing I’ve had enough leadership experience to—_

Oh. _Ohhh._ So that’s why Katsuo’s been making me the de facto leader of all of our missions, only stepping in when I’m totally out of my element. No wonder the leadership scenarios felt so simple. 

_I’ve been doing them this whole time._

“So Setsuna’s probably the most prepared one in this entire examination.” I say ruefully. “Her stealth and infiltration abilities are fantastic.” 

“Probably.” Sayaka agrees. “Hey, since we’re fighting the next round, and we know each other…wanna share stats?”

I shrug. “You first.”

Without hesitation, she tells me:

**Sayaka — Wind Mistress**

CQC: 3.5* (5*)

Ninja Arts: 5.5* (6.5*)

Special: **Wind** 7* **Healing** 5*

Strength: 2.5* (4.5*)

Speed: 4* (5.5*)

Stamina: 4.5*

Intelligence: 5.5*

Stealth: 5*

Overall Combat: 6*

I gape. “Wait, you’re a _seventh-star_ Wind User, already? Then — you’re a proper Wind Mistress, aren’t you?”

Seventh-star mastery of an element marks you as proficient. It’s something to be proud of — a mark of honor. And Sayaka, someone entering the _fourth-star examination_ , is at that level? She’s only been a true ninja for a bit over six months!

She grins, clearly pleased. “Turbulent Air.”

I shake my head, appalled.

Well, assuming she’s telling the truth. I narrow my eyes at her.

“I’m not lying.” She says softly, apparently anticipating my response. “But — guess you’ll find out, won’t you? Now, your stats? Spill.”

**Yuki — Front-Line Specialist**

CQC: 5.5*

Ninja Arts: 5* 

Special: **Wind** 5* **Water** 4* **Healing** 6* 

Strength: 4.5*

Speed: 5.5*

Stamina: 6*

Intelligence: 6* 

Stealth: 4.5*

Overall Combat: 5.5*

I give her an honest answer. She makes a face.

“You’re a fifth-star Wind User? That’s all?” She mumbles. “Your physical parameters aren’t even particularly higher than mine…but that can’t be right, you aren’t as weak as these stats indicate…” 

I smirk. “The last time I’ve been in for a Wind Mastery examination was shortly after you demonstrated Turbulent Air. If there aren’t any up-to-date statistics on me, it doesn’t matter what information they steal.”

_Well, I hadn’t been thinking about that at all. Actually, I’d just wanted to lower my apparent strength to avoid standing out and getting too much extra scrutiny from above._

Her mouth opens in surprise for a moment, then she grins, relieved.

“Good. I didn’t want another easy win, you know?”

I snort, then pause. “Wait, if you’ve been up here all this time, then you watched my—“

“Superior information.” She says, smirking. 

I sigh ruefully. “Well, it’s not like I need to surprise you to win, anyways.”

Sayaka snickers. “The last time we’ve had a match was over a month ago. I’m going to smash you into the wall, Yuki~” 

“Bet on it.” I say impulsively. She blinks, surprised.

“Ah…sure…?”

I seize on my words, pouncing on her sudden flustered state.

“Another favor.” I say, my eyes glittering. 

This gets her attention. 

“…Alright, Yuki, I’ll take you up on that.” She smiles, slowly and confidently. “I can’t wait to have two favors up on you.”

I return her smile. “We’ll see.”

A third person comes up, and promptly ignores us, heading to the farthest corner. 

“Homura, Setsuna, please report to arena three.” 

Sayaka and I perk up, moving closer to the window to spectate.

“Ooh, sweet. She’s up against my third-round opponent. Hopefully it’s a good fight so I can see what she’s—“

“You have ten minutes to subdue the enemy opponent, through knockout or surrender. Begin.”

Immediately, an explosion rings out through the arena. 

“…Winner, Setsuna of Alune! Please report to your designated area.” 

Sayaka’s jaw drops. “B-But…what? What just…what just happened?” 

I palm my face. “She cheated. She cheated better than you.”

Setsuna must have slipped an explosive tag onto her opponent somehow prior to the match. That’s the only thing I can think of. The tag wouldn’t have registered to their senses, given that it was basically inert up until shortly before the point of detonation. A small tag, too, something that would be easy to miss. After that…simple sleight of hand and misdirection, I suppose. 

What she lacks in straight power in technique, she makes up in a perfect understanding of the ninja arts.

A minute later, she pops up in the room. I smile at the girl.

“Congratulations, Setsuna.” 

She smiles back. “Thanks. They told me that I can’t do anything like that anymore, though.”

I shrug. “I’m sure that they’ll keep it in mind when they decide on your promotion.”

Sayaka nods, agreeing. “I’m glad I’m not fighting you, even if you did just screw me out of some useful intelligence.” She chirps, then flashes a malicious grin. “Can’t say the same for Yuki, though.” 

The sealer glances quickly at me, frowning when she notes my lack of surprise.

“She told you?” She asks. 

“Yep.” I say, shrugging. Setsuna glares. 

The blunette sends her a challenging smirk back. “Relying on the strengths of your allies is an important ninja skill. And besides, is that really how you want to beat a friend?”

Surprisingly, the grey-eyed girl averts her gaze. “…It’s our promotion examination. If being a ninja gets me promoted, I’ll do it.”

Sayaka stares openly.

“…Hm.” But rather than say anything, she makes a non-committal sound, ending the conversation abruptly. 

To be honest, I’m not surprised by her answer. Setsuna’s told me already, after all. 

_“If you want to live…don’t depend on me.”_

And besides that, she has a lot more to prove than I do. I don’t take offense to it. I can probably put up a decent fight and get to fourth-star, but Setsuna really needs to demonstrate that she’s able to play at this level if she wants to keep going.

“You don’t seem particularly bothered by that.” The Wind Mistress observes. 

I shrug. “I get it.” 

Once again, Sayaka finds herself at a loss.

“I…right. Huh. If…you say so.”

We wait in vaguely awkward silence for the next fifteen minutes. I can feel the girl’s gaze on me, but resolutely ignore it. 

“Arena three, round one bracket complete. Participants, you have five minutes to prepare yourselves.” 

Instinctively, I tense up, glancing at Sayaka. Soon, I’ll be fighting her on the battlefield once more. This time, though, it won’t be a friendly spar — it’ll be an active challenge, an exhibition match. 

Am I ready for this?

Sayaka is a Wind Mistress, meaning that she’s capable of flight-capable combat. I have no doubt that it revolves around her _Turbulent Air_ power, as well — making her an immensely powerful Wind User. She’s probably the most skilled Wind User I know now, in fact — although Hikaru has control beyond what either of us could imagine, Sayaka’s a specialist in the element. 

_And_ she’s a healer. Whatever I hit her with will have to be decisive, and vice-versa. No more messing around, like we do in spars. 

I clench my fist. I’ve been thinking about that for a while now, that loss. How she dominated me with her Turbulent Air technique. 

Not this time. I’ve honed my physical abilities to a razor’s edge…against _Mari_ , of all people. I won’t falter. Not now. 

“Yuki, Sayaka, please report to Arena Three for your second-round bracket fight.”

I glance at the blunette, the awkward air dissipating immediately. She smirks at me as she flips off the balcony, letting a summoned zephyr take her safely down. I move to follow her, but am stopped by a tug on my arm.

“Setsuna?” I ask. 

“Good luck.” She says softly.

“Thanks.” I nod, flashing her a small, confident smile. She lets go, and without further ado, I jump down to what I’m positive will be the hardest fight of my career to date.


	62. (3.6.2) Fourth Star Examination, Part 2

#  **3.6.2 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Fourth-Star Examination, Part 2**

By mutual, unspoken agreement, we stand at opposite sides of the lake. 

“Ready to get your butt kicked?” Sayaka asks cheerily. 

I flash her a small, confident smirk. “We’ll see.”

“You have twenty minutes to subdue your opponent, through knockout or surrender. Begin.” 

Given the additional time, I feel secure enough to wait and see what Sayaka will do first. However, it seems like she has the same idea.

“Ladies first.” I invite. She quirks an eyebrow. 

“Believe me, you do _not_ want me to go first.”

“I insist.” I retort. 

I’m confident in my ability to play defensively. I need to see how she’s evolved as a fighter before I jump straight in. Although I’m positive that I’m a superior close-range combatant now, I’m not quite sure what she’s capable of, and not knowing could cost me badly. So instead, I wait. Qi floods into my body in the span of a single breath, reinforcing my eyes, ears, and body. 

“If you say so.” She says, gracefully flipping as a massive updraft pushes her up to the ceiling, twenty meters above us. Effortlessly, she adheres herself to the surface, now upside-down. “Well, you gave me the first move, so — hey, where’d you go?!”

I’ve already slipped deeper into the lightly forested area in the time it takes her to do that. Even though it only took her about three seconds, that time is enough for me to get away and go into cover as I unseal one of my twin blades.

Immediately, however, I’m forced to spin around, calling my qi together as I bat away a deceptively small Wind projectile. It explodes — some kind of compressed air attack — but isn’t sufficient to send me flying, not with my affinity. Another dozen follow in the span of a few seconds, forcing me to really start moving. Her aim is good, but I’m a bit too fast for the projectiles, no matter how well she leads them. Behind me, I can hear the sound of wood splintering and hastily push a little more qi into my aura, shrapnel harmlessly deflecting off of me. 

Annoying. She’s pestering me to make it harder to come up with a counter, and chasing me to ensure I don’t slip too far out of range. 

_Fine, I can handle that._

Abruptly reversing my direction, I slip under another one of those bolts, then lunge forward with Wind-enhanced speeds. She immediately starts backtracking, but finds that her movement speeds on the ceiling are slower than mine. Soon enough, I’m in an uncomfortable place for her — directly underneath her. As I charge my energy, she lunges downwards at me, Wind flaring around her body. Wary of her power, I leap far away and into the air, power flowing around my body and suspending me mid-air. 

Not bothering to stop, she slams into the ground, crushing the ground underneath her and sending shrapnel into the air. Taking hold of some of the debris with her qi, she hurls the projectiles at me at high speed. I respond by contemptuously crushing them with directed waves of force.

Sayaka grins as she meets my gaze. “You seem to have improved.” 

“So have you.” I mutter under my breath, maintaining my flight. It takes a bit of focus, but I’ve had a lot of practice with my element. Still, I don’t think I’m at the seventh-star level yet, controlled battle-ready flight. It would be dangerous to fight her in the air.

The ninja shoves her hands away from her, ripping trees out of the ground with brute Wind force and seizing hold of them before launching those at me. Although I could probably smash my ways through those, as well, it would be a waste of energy. Instead, I let myself fall to the ground, narrowly evading one of the large projectiles as I do.

Immediately, she takes to the air. 

Once again, distance is her game. She’s going to abuse her long-range superiority over me — and she hasn’t even pulled out _Turbulent Air_ , which I assume she’s perfected in the three months she’s had to do so. I’m sure she can manage it for longer than five minutes now. 

This time, I can’t use my Water element to beat her the same way I did last time. The room is simply too large, giving her too much space to dodge. I’ll take the opportunity if I see it, but…

A devastating blast of Wind tears through the air, forcing me to dodge backwards. 

I need to close the gap, and I only have one technique capable of doing that. The qi I’ve steadily been gathering surges through my body, wreathing my sword and body in light blue qi. The blade, in particular, hums from the combination of intensity and resonance, becoming _dangerous._

Sayaka recognizes the danger instantly, if the particularly massive bolt of Wind she sends at me is any indicator. Her eyes widens when I simply stab the incoming projectile, the resultant air blast simply pathing around me — then being drawn into my sword.

Now properly alarmed, Sayaka flicks _Turbulent Air_ on and rapidly begins moving away from me. 

_No, none of that._

“ _Hurricane Sword._ ” 

An absolutely _crushing_ blast of Wind, shaped as a massive sword, fires off my blade, _disintegrating_ trees and rocks in its way. Quickly, I follow in its wake, my qi-enhanced body propelling me.

Without any obstacles in my path, I’m able to move at my top speed. A moment later, I jump up, unsealing my second blade as I go, and _spin_ , cutting Wind rippling out from me in a lethal ring.

“Aah! _Twister_!” 

Sayaka, still covered in her powerful aura, violently pivots. The air _tears_ around her, creating a sudden and self-sustaining tornado around her. Our two attacks clash with an ear-piercing screech, clockwise and counterclockwise winds tearing into each other before sending us both flying backwards, suffering from minor lacerations.

Refusing to lose my progress, I use my limited Wind Mastery to step on the _air_ and leap right back at her, forcing qi into my blades.

 _“Breaker!”_ I snap out, the incantation improving my focus. Air bursts out from my blades, creating a powerful force that crushes into Sayaka’s hasty defense, drawing blood and a pained gasp. She glares at me, leaping away off the ceiling and into the open air. Instead of standing around, she begins actively gliding around on self-created currents, channeling a ball of qi in her hand.

I leap after her, ready to divert my movement with a moment’s notice. She smirks, aiming her palms out at me and launching a tearing vortex of Wind. I dodge by kicking off the air, realizing too late that’s exactly what she wanted, another blast of Wind rippling out from her. 

_Good thing I’d already anticipated her doing that!_

Just as she has two hands, I have two feet, and the other one is already prepared to send me hurtling in a different direction entirely. Despite her tricky actions, I’m able to slip around both attacks, qi built up in both blades again.

This time, I’m focused enough to not require the incantation, silently launching a series of cutting Wind blades at her. They’re potent enough for her to put significant effort into blocking them.

Despite my barrage, she’s still able to take half a second to swipe at me with her hands, sending a set of small, near-invisible Wind blades at me. I deflect them with one sword, pulsing a tiny bit of qi out of the blade, then wind up and hurl the Wind-enhanced weapon at her. Eyes wide, she dodges out of the way, but still suffers a fairly deep slash to the shoulder, the blade traveling past her to embed itself in the rooftop. Grimacing, she reaches out with her other palm and clenches her fist.

It’s my turn to be surprised as I feel the air around me compress down, locking me in place before slamming me roughly against the ceiling. Before she can do anything further, however, I pulse energy out from my body to break her hold and continue jumping off the air at her.

I’ve been gaining on her — she’s forced to move in circles to avoid hitting the edges of the arena, but I can cut the corners and travel at her in a straight line. Although she’s faster overall in the air, my bursts of speed make me still dangerous, and she’s extremely wary of fighting me up close. Taking half a second to yank my second blade back to me with a powerful gust, I catch it in time to block a devastating laser that deflects off the enhanced blade and into the trees, severing a few trunks. Despite the clean deflection, the force is still sufficient to send me backwards, and I’m forced to catch myself mid-air with my Wind abilities. 

Eyes narrowed in concentration, she starts really going out, a flurry of intense beams peppering me and forcing me back. They pack too much energy to be stopped casually, and with that rate of fire, I’m not able to chase her down. Blasting myself away with a burst of Wind out the tip of one of my blades, I’m able to escape the worst of it, landing on one of the taller trees before letting myself drop out of the canopy as another Wind attack trails over my head.

_I can’t use all my energy here. I still have a third fight after this._

I need to end this fight, and soon. Ideally, without using qi. And that means—

My body slips seamlessly into fourth-level reinforcement as I dart away from my original position, a bolt of Wind cratering the dirt. 

—letting her run out of steam. 

Between my raw mobility and my ability to maintain distance, I’m able to dodge without expending much qiat all. It’s physically taxing, certainly, but not dangerous. 

I’ve noticed that about _Turbulent Air_ — while it dramatically enhances the intensity of her abilities, letting her fire super-powered shots at high rates, it isn’t exactly an _innovative_ ability. She’s still limited by her creativity and actual skill, and there’s only so much you can do with Wind—

Behind me, a massive twister forms, ripping out nearby trees by the roots and pulverizing them.

_Shit. Forgot she could do that._

A moment later, it’s sent roaring at me, and it’s all I can do to get out of its way in time. A second and third one quickly follow, causing massive devastation as she tries to take me down. Worse, I’m not even sure it costs her much to use the technique. As impressive as the tornadoes are, all she’s doing is using qi to violently rip Wind around, infusing the motion into the air. It’s horrifyingly simple, but brutally effective nonetheless, and it has me more than a little worried. As the dust settles from the trio of storms, I realize with some disbelief that she’s leveled well over a third of the forest, dramatically thinning out my ability to hide. 

Change of plans. Although I’ve been dodging her with relative ease so far, I’ve been reliant on the cover of the trees as much as my own speed and reflexes. Without the cover, she’ll clip me with one of her devastatingly powerful attacks, and that’ll be it.

I need to end this now. The problem is that nothing’s been working. Even if I get close, that twister attack of her, which she can produce merely by spinning, is more than enough to repel me, Gale Stance or not.

I need to end this with my next attack, or she’ll bleed me dry. Well, if I have to use one attack…what better than my ultimate Wind technique? It will be tiring, but I don't think I have a choice.

“You…are so annoying!” She snaps out at me, voice amplified by Wind. 

I shrug vaguely. “Either way…we’re done here, Sayaka.” I silently seal one of my blades, taking the other in both hands. She tenses up as my energy gathers, shimmering into the visible system. Blue qi glows around me before being drawn into my blade, the blade hungry for my qi.

Mari’s Volt Line. A simple attack of absolute power that destroys anything in its path, a one-shot-kill technique. From the moment I saw it, I knew I wanted it. I don’t have her speed, though, so I can’t guarantee a hit the same way she does. So what can I change, then? What can I change to get as close as possible?

_Area of effect._

Sayaka grins, agitated qi beginning to whirl around her.

Subtly, I widen my stance as my aura spikes. I’d normally avoid channelling that level of qi, but this technique is pure Wind. There isn’t any Ice to be found. 

The ground abruptly cracks under my feet as the sheer force of the power I’ve accumulated weighs on it too heavily, the sword in my hands as light as air, yet impossibly heavy. 

_So much for trying to conserve energy._

Sayaka scowls at the dangerous blade in my hands, her own aura pulsing as she lands on the ground. A test of our techniques, then? Most likely, we’ll both injure ourselves and exhaust ourselves. But…she doesn’t give me any other choice. I’d thought I could try holding back to be ready for Setsuna, but underestimating Sayaka isn’t a good idea at all. We finish charging at the same time. The air visibly distorts around the blunette, a look of absolute focus in her eyes.

_I need more._

At my calling, Etheria creeps into the accumulated power, making it glow brighter and brighter. 

_Here we go!_

_“Aeroblast!”_

_“Stormbreaker!”_

I bring my blade up, momentarily holding the full weight of my qi above my head, then send it crashing down.

The air _screams_ as a massive burst of Wind explodes out in a wave from my blade, a cone of destruction not dissimilar to _Hurricane Sword_ rippling out in an absolutely incredible blast.

It’s even more amazing, then, that Sayaka’s technique manages to withstand it at all. A truly incredible blast of Wind roars out from her, amplified by her _Turbulent Air,_ and crashes into my attack. It’s amazingly powerful, certainly, but my force is a bit more intense and is able to pierce hers.

Immediately after launching her attack, she leaps away, trying to raise a defense as well. It isn’t quite enough, though — the force crushes her into the far arena wall, the path between us having been cleared by her earlier tornadoes. 

I sink to my knees as crushing pain ripples through my body, punishment for pushing out more than I can truly handle. I’m powerful, I know that, if inexperienced. But the kind of force necessary to level thousands of square meters of forest _isn’t_ something I should be able to do. Without Katsuo’s masterwork blades, I wouldn’t have been able to break her technique. 

But…it’s over now. Sayaka is unconscious against the far wall. I exhale heavily and seal the sword, letting my regeneration run through my body, knitting together the bruised flesh and burst capillaries from over-stressing my— 

The blunette stirs. 

Eyes wide, I quickly unseal my bow, empower an arrow with Wind, and fire. The enhancement lets it cut cleanly through the air — Sayaka’s eyes snap open, and she dives to the side in time to avoid a direct hit.

A second later, the arrow explodes.

Grimacing, another harsh flash of pain ripples through me. I dull it with the Veil, seal the bow away, and force myself to my feet, sword clutched in my hands. 

The smoke cloud dissipates to reveal Sayaka, bent over. One of her arms is bent the wrong way, but she forces it into place, wincing. Growling, I force my body to move, starting a steady run towards her. She glances up, a pained look on her face, and visibly concentrates.

_Shit. She can still use qi._

It’s a race against time, now, to deliver the final blow. Sealing away the bow, I slip deeper into the Veil, covering the distance rapidly. 

She forces herself to a standing position, still clutching her hurt arm.

I move ever closer, focused solely on reaching her. 

When I get to twenty meters away, she abruptly straightens and _lunges._ There’s no warning at all — one moment, she’s standing. The next, she’s ending her incredible dash in front of me, outstretched hand holding a blade of Wind. Instinctively, I slip into my Gale Stance and _pivot_ on my right foot, her blade shredding right through my high resistances and slashing shallowly into my chest. Completing my spin, the back of my Wind-enhanced fist smashes into her head, sending her crashing into the ground.

This time, the blunette doesn’t get up. 

“Winner, Yuki of Alune! Please report to the medical bay.”

I smile exhaustedly, letting my grip on my Veil slip away. 

“Good fight.” I mutter to the unconscious girl as a medic lands next to her. 

She doesn’t respond, but I feel like she’ll appreciate the thought anyways…probably?

  
  



	63. (3.6.3) Fourth Star Examination, Part 3

#  **3.6.3 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Fourth-Star Examination, Part 3**

“Well done, Yuki.” Hikaru says, glancing up at me as I enter the medical bay. It’s a medium-sized room, beds spaced evenly away. Currently only one’s filled, though, my blue-haired rival grimacing as she sits up and rubs her head.

“Thanks, Hikaru.” I’m unsurprised to see my mentor here. With the kinds of damage people inflict on each other here — hell, Setsuna blew up an explosive tag planted  _ directly  _ on someone for her first match — it’s no surprise that they’ve called in someone like her. “What’s the damage?”

“Eh…some crush injuries, external and internal. A few slash wounds from that blade of yours. Fractured skull, concussion.” Hikaru casually leaks confidential patient information to me. “And as for you…hm, you haven’t patched yourself up yet?”

“I don’t want to use more qi than I already have. I still have a third fight, you know?”

Hikaru laughs. “That you do. Alright, then…” She channels a bit of her pink qi into her finger and pokes me. Instantly, my wounds start knitting themselves together, the part of her that’s merged with my Spiritual Core seeming to resonate, as well.

“I could do something about the qi exhaustion you’re suffering from…” Hikaru says knowingly, “But I won’t. That’s not my job. Good luck winning against your next opponent.”

I wince. Setsuna’s only improved by leaps and bounds over the last few months. Having trained in battlefield sealing for six months, already, she’s become scarily competent. 

“I have no idea how I’ll beat her.” I admit. “It would have been a challenging fight if I’d been fresh. With me as I am now…? I have no idea. I’ll still try, but…”

“She’s…that strong now?” Sayaka interjects, still looking somewhat out of it.

I shrug. “She was at fourth-star level a little less than two months ago, I think. I really have no idea where she’s at now, since she’s been hiding the true breadth of her skills from me.”

Hikaru blinks, surprised. “For her to know her third fight, and that soon...she managed to get into the records? Hm…”

I blink. “That was fairly obvious, wasn’t it?”

My master glances at me dryly. “You didn’t even try sneaking in, so you don’t know how this works. There are two distinct levels of security when guarding the records for this exam — one that someone with fourth-star level stealth could feasibly make it past, and one with an approximate  _ seventh-star  _ stealth requirement. From what I understand, Setsuna managed to get into the latter.”

“Huh. How do you know that, and what’s the difference between the two?”

“Just a hunch, really…the first-level records don’t give much past some basic information and your matchups, not even a proper statistical rundown. More importantly, they aren’t released until only a few weeks before. If she’s been hiding her skills from you for a while, she knew earlier. The second-level records are far more detailed.”

Sayaka nods. “I saw Setsuna’s matchups, too. Her first opponent would have been devastating against her — they were a sixth-level Water User.”

I blink. “You managed to get into the second-level records too?”

The blunette’s not a half-bad ninja, but she’s certainly not a  _ stealth _ specialist the way Setsuna is. How did she make it past? If she did?

She just flashes me a mysterious half-smile.

“Anyways, I was thinking more along the lines of how she had managed to plant the explosive tag on her first-round partner. If she had access to the second-level records, then she would have known to cripple her first opponent instantly like how she did. But… _ how _ did she do it?” Hikaru muses. “That act alone might guarantee her promotion, depending on just how she managed it. If the proctors are as confused as I am…”

I sigh ruefully. 

“Well, I’ll see the rest of you two later. I need to get out there and watch Setsuna’s next fight.”

“I’m coming with you.” Sayaka says dryly. “I might have lost, but I still have another match to go.”

“Alright. Let’s go then.”

The girl glances at Hikaru, seeming to be asking permission. With an amused smile, the medic grants it. We make our way out, turning into the hallway and beelining for the stairs.

“You’re strong now, Yuki.” Sayaka murmurs. I glance at her, confused. There’s a rather contemplative look on her face.

“I suppose so.” I say noncommittally. “But…you yourself are a Wind Mistress now, aren’t you?” 

Sayaka smiles, nodding. “That is true. Yet, you were able to defeat me. It’s clear that I still need to work a lot harder. After this milestone…it’s going to be really hard to get recognized as an eighth-star Wind Mistress.”

I acknowledge her point. The difference between seventh and eighth star Users is significant, and the gap between eighth and ninth even more so. 

“But still…becoming a Wind Mistress in a mere six months after graduating from the Academy? That’s…practically unheard of.”

“That it is.” She agrees amiably. “Guess you’ll have to do your best to catch up, huh?”

I smirk at her. “I suppose so.”

“And, Yuki?” 

Hearing the seriousness in her voice, I glance back. 

“I’ll want a rematch soon.”

…

We get up just in time to watch Setsuna hop down, taking her place in front of her opponent.

“Ooh.” Sayaka says. “She’s going to struggle against this one, too. He’s like Mari, a superior close-combatant fighter.”

I look down, interested. Setsuna should be forced to struggle against this opponent, and we’ll be able to see more of her abilities. 

“You have twenty minutes to subdue your opponent, through knockout or surrender. Begin.” 

Setsuna immediately raises her hand, glancing at me as she does.

And I  _ know. _

A small smirk finds its way to her lips, the expression utterly foreign on her face.

“I surrender.” 

“…What.” Sayaka whispers from next to me. 

_ Setsuna, you—  _

I understand now. Setsuna…is the purest incarnation of the concept of ‘ninja’ that I’ve ever seen. Knowing that her current opponent is too strong for her to handle easily, she’s simply capitulated, letting her enter her next fight with full power, having shown very little of her capabilities…

Against someone as weakened as I am…

“Used pure basics to take her first opponent down…intelligently surrendering against the second in order to set up her third match against an opponent who is both weakened and someone she’s familiar with…” Sayaka murmurs. “She’s really thought this through, hasn’t she?”

I smile, relieved. 

So long as she doesn’t put up a completely abysmal showing in her fight against me, she’s all but ensured a fourth-star promotion. Her goal isn’t to win all three fights — it’s to make an impressive showing. Although she hasn’t had any flashy fights the way Sayaka and I clashed, her strategy and planning should be plenty sufficient to secure her promotion.

_ Well played, Setsuna. _

She makes her way back up, meeting me with a tiny grin that tells me she knows that I know that she knows. I can’t help but send her a smile back. Seeing her like this, so very confident...it’s....

It’s...

_ Alluring.  _

“No hard feelings?” She asks, shyly, but there’s definitely a playful glint in her eyes. It’s by far the most open I’ve seen her in public.

_ I wouldn’t mind...seeing her like this more. _

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” I warn, suppressing a competitive smirk. “You haven’t won yet.”

Upon realizing how open she’s being, she immediately closes off, drifting away from me. 

“Yeah...you’re right.” She murmurs. This time, I have to hide my frown. It isn’t that I don’t like seeing her like this, not at all. It’s...interesting, I guess, to watch her develop her confidence and pride, not just in her seals, but as a ninja.

Briefly, I regret having said anything at all.

Then I shake the thought ahead, mentally sighing. There’s no point in silly thoughts like these, not when such a tough fight awaits me. And there’s at least one thing I can do to prepare for it.

“About time.” I vaguely hear Sayaka’s voice as I slip into my mindscape, beginning to meditate. 

“You know about it?” Setsuna asks, surprised.

“Oh, Setsuna...” The blunette purrs. “There’s a lot I know about Yuki.”

“I...I see.” The sealer says, suddenly sounding a little uncertain. It sounds like my partner just wants to let the conversation drop, but the Wind Mistress isn’t done.

“I dare say there’s some things I know about him that even you don’t know...” She whispers. 

“I...” Setsuna’s voice remains steady, but long experience with her tells me the girl is unsettled, nonetheless.

“Knock it off, Sayaka.” I say softly, briefly opening my eyes. “I don’t need her to be off-balance to win.” I direct a small smile towards the sealer, letting her know I’m just playing around. She manages a weak smile in return.

“Sorry, sorry!” The girl in question says flippantly, clearly not meaning any of it. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt you. You’re very busy, after all.” 

I don’t bother to respond to that, slipping back into my trance. By focusing on my internal state, I can increase the rate that my body regenerates qi. 

_ Harmony of body and spirit.  _

It also gives me the chance to truly recover from the damage I’ve dealt to myself via qi overload. My regeneration has done most of the work, but now I comb through my own body, ensuring that everything can still function optimally.

“Maybe I should develop a mindscape too…” Sayaka mutters. “If you thought it was worth it, it probably won’t be a waste of my time, either…” 

The Wind Mistress falls silent. I can tell that she’s attempting to slip into her own meditative trance. Setsuna, on the other hand, is just quiet, but not peaceful. Her qi is somewhat agitated, even if she doesn’t move a muscle.

It would appear that Sayaka managed to get under her skin after all.

I make the mental equivalent of a shrug, returning to my meditation. It isn’t my concern, not now. I need to put up a good showing…for both of us.

…

“Yuki, Setsuna, please report to the Third Arena for your third round bracket fight.”

My eyes flash open. Ready or not, it’s time. Am I ready?

_ Hell no. _

Setsuna’s completely fresh, has a near-complete understanding of my capabilities, and has successfully hidden a substantial chunk of her growth from me. On the other hand, I’m still dangerously tired, although my body is in healthy condition, and am nearing qi exhaustion. The meditation helped, but I had less than half an hour to heal.

It’ll have to be enough.

I briefly contemplate surrendering. It would be the most intelligent move, I think. Fighting this fight when I’ve already showcased my abilities well would be stupid. I don’t need to win all three fights. 

…But Setsuna’s strategy depends on my willingness to fight this. If I surrender, she will have showcased virtually zero of her combat capabilities. Although her mastery of apparent stealth and tactics is incredibly sound, she can’t get by on just that. She needs me to fight.

So I will.

Without sparing a glance at my opponent, I leap, a wind current carrying me down to the battlefield. I slip into my Veil, the lingering pain flowing away. 

Breathe in, breathe out.

Setsuna jumps into position, looking grimly determined. 

…Once again, that momentary feeling of weakness surfaces. That feeling of growing soft. I clench my fist, forcing myself to remember. 

_ You give me a reason to fight, Setsuna. _

Never again…I’ll never lose sight of what’s most important. First and foremost, protecting my comrades. The people I love. The people I care about. 

_ I’m ready. _

For a moment, our eyes meet. 

_ ‘Ready’?  _ She asks silently, with a small quirk of her lips.

Silently, I unseal both of my swords.

_ ‘Yes.’  _

“You have thirty minutes to subdue your opponent, through knockout or surrender. Begin.” 

  
  



	64. (3.6.4) Fourth Star Examination, Part 4

#  **3.6.4 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Fourth-Star Examination, Part 4**

My swords flash out in front of me, flitting through an intricate pattern that sends a half-dozen Wind slashes roaring across the gap between us. They’re relatively weak, but cover enough ground to force her to react, even if it’s just to move away.

Instead, she merely raises her left arm, unsealing a small black steel buckler. With it, she effortlessly blocks every crescent, using the absolute minimal amount of movement required.

I narrow my eyes. Katsuo’s work. I shouldn’t expect to be able to pierce that shield, then.

The shield disappears, allowing her to hurl a series of throwing needles at me. Channeling my qi, I swing my blade, blowing them away with a small burst of Wind. The second the air dies down, she hurls another set, to be met with the exact same fate. Then another one. 

…Oh. She’s wearing me down. 

It’s disturbingly effective, too. I’m hesitant to do the obvious thing and dodge because it’s very obviously what she wants. Otherwise, she wouldn’t keep on doing this.

I can’t even take my eyes off her, which is the most annoying part. I’d contemplated trying to stall out the timer, but her sensory capabilities far outweigh my stealth ones, and letting her put seals everywhere is a recipe for disaster.

What do I do, then? I’d thought about how to fight Setsuna, particularly after our initial spar, but those plans had relied heavily on me devastating the surrounding area and not being virtually empty on qi.

I deflect the tenth set of throwing needles with another burst of Wind, but am taken off guard when she hurls a knife at me, one that travels far faster than it should—

Gritting my teeth, I hurl one of my blades at the oncoming projectile, easily deflecting it. A swipe of my hand sends the projectile flying far to the side with a burst of Wind, rendering it harmless. A raw qi string I’ve attached to the hilt of my sword lets me yank it back to my hand. 

Pure qi manipulation — something I’ve briefly worked on with Sayaka, after getting the idea from her little friction trick. While very limited, it isn’t especially challenging to do with my level of control, and it’s very flexible. 

And, more importantly, it’s something I can do while manipulating Wind…and, for minor usages like this, it is relatively inexpensive on my qi. 

Winding up again, I infuse the blade with Wind and hurl the sword once more, sending it slashing in a wide arc. Setsuna moves to intercept the string before suddenly ducking, eyes wide, as I run my element through the string. 

_Thanks for that idea as well, Mari._

As the blade finishes its arc, I pull up and slam down, forcing Setsuna to roll as the blade slams down on her position, the cutting energy bursting out around the point of impact.

Scowling, I retract my blade, having only managed to inflict a glancing scratch from the final blast of qi. Slowly, a dozen trees fall to the ground, cleanly severed by my attack.

Although I can move the blade around rapidly, it is still only one vector of attack that I can only manipulate in relatively straight lines. And, since Setsuna is aware of the Wind in the blade, she won’t try to block it, either. Despite Katsuo’s especially skilled weapon-crafting, I think the combination of the strength of my own blade, the accumulated velocity, and sharpness of my Wind would probably succeed in cutting through. 

_Setsuna apparently agrees._

Well, if the problem is that I only have one line of attack—

Setsuna dodges as I send both blades flying at her head-on, the girl rolling under one of them to avoid getting trapped in the middle. They both stick into a tree behind her. Abruptly, I retract the strings, yanking myself closer to the sealer.

She hurls two knives close to my landing point, forcing me to yank my swords out of the tree as I cover the rest of the distance on foot. As I grow closer, she drops a knife to the ground and stomps hard on it with her reinforced strength, burying it in the dirt. 

I wince. It’s even more important that I avoid letting her get out of sight, thanks to her demonstrating the ability to plant mines. But why did she do that in front of me? It’s something I could have guessed she was capable of, given her capabilities, but I hadn’t been actively thinking about it. 

_A red herring?_

Setsuna jumps away, planting a second knife down and making me wary. Instead of an explosive mine, those might be marked to create a linear barrier, instead.

As I lunge to close the distance, a five-meter high, blue-hued barrier abruptly materializes in front of me, forcing me to suddenly stop. My eyes glance disbelievingly to the opposite side—

_To the knife I’d deflected back in the beginning?!_

In the time I take to confirm the situation, Setsuna has lobbed a half-dozen knives over the wall, forcing me to blow them sky-high with a burst of Wind. They’re launched so violently that they’re embedded into the ceiling. Not looking especially bothered, Setsuna hurls another set of knives at me, the barrier flickering out to let them pass. I reflexively respond with another Wind burst, sending the knives flying into the barrier as she immediately reasserts it. 

Deflecting off of the wall, they immediately and violently explode, sending fire and shrapnel everywhere. I’m not able to react in time, and am peppered with sharp pieces of metal. Thankfully, I’m able to get one of my blades between me and my face, and avoid getting either eye poked out by the shrapnel. As expected, Setsuna immediately takes advantage of the distraction to rush me, hurling her blackened sword at my head. Glaring at her, I move to block it with my own, preparing Wind to blast it away — but upon hitting the sword, it becomes totally immovable.

Wincing as the deflected force travels brutally down my arm, I notice a qi string wrapped around the hilt of the blade. She must have used a stasis seal on the blade, and triggered it with a string. She lunges closer, grabbing her blade out of midair as if it had never been sealed at all, and slashes downward at me.

Grimacing, I absorb the unnaturally powerful hit that she brings down with crossed blades, the shock violently traveling through my arms and down my legs. The ground cracks as she puts her full weight into the strike, leaning into me as my guard shakes. Then, as I commit to repelling the strike, she abruptly lets go, string wrapped around the hilt. Realizing her trick, I force myself to fall back as she unseals her shield and attempts to crack me in the head with it.

Although dramatically boosting her physical capabilities, Setsuna isn’t my physical equal even with her seal system. I’m able to block her strike and attack with the other hand, Wind surging into my sword. With a simple movement, she deflects the hit with her reinforced shield, snapping her free wrist. I duck as her blade comes flying over me, but reach up and sever the string with a sweep of my blade.

Looking annoyed, she steps back as she wildly whips the qi string at me. It isn’t challenging to sever, but it rapidly extends and is hard to properly block as a result of how fluid and unusual the weapon is. She manages to catch me on my cheek with one such slash, a sharp cut forming. Lunging forward, I dive into her guard and slash at her with my empowered blades. She catches the first strike on her shield, but the second hammers down towards her unprotected side—

The blade smashes into her shirt and bounces off as if I’ve hit a solid wall.

_Stasis seals again?!_

Surprised, I’m not able to stop her from jumping forward and smashing her buckler into my face, sending me stumbling back. She hurls a knife at my foot, and I instinctively kick it into the air with _Gale Stance_ , watching as it flips far away. 

So even her clothes have stasis seals…

My eyes widen as she unseals another knife faster than I can blink — it immediately rockets into my chest, nearly piercing my fourth-level reinforcement. 

_Though it does crack a rib._

It does manage to impart tremendous force into me, making me slide back before shattering against my reinforcement. In the time that buys, though, Setsuna drops a smoke bomb and disappears in the resultant cloud.

Cursing silently, I aim a burst of Wind to dissipate the smog. My instincts flare as I do, though, and I glance up to see her vaulting out of the cloud, sword and shield in hand.

_Huh? Didn’t I disarm her already?_

Upon noticing that I’ve seen her — perhaps counting on it, even — she flicks another smoke bomb directly at my face. Adjusting my aim, I blow both the weapon and the girl out of the air, although she manages to interpose her shield to block the cutting edge of the Wind. 

Just prior to the blast of Wind connecting, qi unfolds from her shield, taking the form of a large blue flower that easily covers her entire body. 

_A barrier?_

She seamlessly rides the current into the air, taking advantage of the increased surface area. Once she’s a good way into the air, she stops abruptly, hands gripping the platform.

 _Another stasis seal. Bloody hells._

Frowning, I take a moment to gouge out the two knives she’s planted into the earth with a burst of Wind, then call a precise Wind barrier in front of me as Setsuna unseals a rifle and fires down at me from her floating shield.

_What a bizarre way to use a stasis seal…_

Contemplating my situation for a moment, I watch as the sealer bites her lip before unsealing a scroll, wrapping a qi string around it, and hurling it down at me.

Eyes narrowed, I move to blow it away before remembering the trick she’s just pulled several times. Instead of attempting to smack it around, I use the force to send _myself_ away. 

Refusing to let me get away that easily, Setsuna manipulates her string to send it snapping towards me, cracking it like a whip with her enhanced strength to send it flying up before cutting the string entirely, letting it fly towards me at a shocking velocity. 

A wry smile makes its way onto my face as I dip into the Veil, trying to come up with a solution as fast as I can. 

_Well played, Setsuna. Well played._

_…_

_But I won’t let you win that easily._

Stabbing my blades into the ground underneath me, I force out a blast of Wind, causing a massive, shaped burst of air to explode directly under me. It hurts, certainly, but I ignore it easily. 

More importantly, a great mass of air and dirt erupts from the ground, covering the air. Although Setsuna could nullify a Wind blast via stasis seal, she can’t make it go through all the dirt and rocks being thrown into the air— 

A massive explosion rings out, but I’m mostly shielded from the heat and fire by the air and earth. Blood drips down the side of my head as I realize my eardrums have ruptured…and I’m on the ground. Huh.

I’m alive, though, and relatively uninjured. That’s as much as I could hope for, given the raw desperation of my technique, even if my head hurts like mad. Hidden by the debris and smoke still coating the air, I don’t hesitate to regenerate my injuries. With how far away Setsuna is, it will probably take her a while to make it over here, wary of a surprise attack.

Now what, though? Even though I’m in good condition, I’m nearly empty on qi. An internal art it might be, but reinforcement drains a decent amount of my qi, and I’ve been using a not insignificant amount of Wind manipulation.

On the other hand, Setsuna is mostly consuming tools. I’m sure that, given the time she’s had to prepare for this, that she has far more tools than I have qi.

A bullet whizzes past my cheek, nearly drawing blood. 

_I can’t keep up with her._

Setsuna has been using her superior battle conditions from the beginning of this fight, exploiting every advantage she has. She’s forced me to waste qi on deflecting projectiles and stasis seals, knowing that I’m already dangerously low on qi. And she keeps taking positions that are dangerous for me to breach when I’m this weakened. Her current position would be child’s play to attack if I could waste qi jumping off the air, but that would be quite risky to do in my current state.

Even if I was at my fullest reserves, though, Setsuna would still be quite the challenge. She has so many nifty tricks — that technique she used to hurl the scroll at me after I’d dodged it is something that would have caught just about any other ninja our age off guard. It was a dirty trick, cultivated specifically against Wind, Water, and Fire Users, all who would have found their typical method to block such a straightforward attack utterly nullified. 

_I need something new. Something to give me a small edge, no matter how slight._

The next bullet bounces off my forehead, failing to pierce me because of my fourth-level reinforcement.

_Time to go._

I retreat through the cloud of dust and dirt as another scroll blows my former position to hell.

…

Fifteen minutes.

I’ve been evading Setsuna for fifteen minutes, using nothing but simple fourth-level resistance in order to increase my speed, strength, and durability to optimal levels. I’ve even sealed away one of my blades to lower my burden, using the remaining one to blow myself away when I need to dodge something quick. 

In other words, we are now about twenty minutes into the match. If I stall for ten more minutes, the match will be declared a tie.

Setsuna doesn’t seem especially concerned, though, almost leisurely chasing me down with thrown knives, throwing needles, and the occasional gunshot. 

I know exactly what she’s doing, however. Slowly but surely, she’s boxing me in, dropping seals as she goes along. Eventually, she’ll trigger a series of barriers and lock me in before…well, I wouldn’t be unsurprised if she just blows up the place I’m trapped in. The problem is that there’s nothing I can do about it. We’re in a closed space, which, while large, isn’t infinite. Moreover, my typical response to this — blow everything up first — isn’t going to happen with my depleted storages. 

Honestly, at this point? I’m just prolonging the inevitable. All the methods I have to escape aren’t feasible right now. I can’t even take her in a close-combat fight thanks to her tricks, as well as that _Limit Breaker_ she has yet to utilize. Once that comes out, it’s over. That level of foreign qi, when I’m as depleted as I am, would probably knock me out cold.

_But still, running meaninglessly is just going to drain my energy. If I want to make a final stand, I should do it now, while I still have this much energy._

For the first time in our chase, I turn around, sword flashing through the air. Instantly, her shield materializes to turn aside the blow once more, her black blade slashing down at me. 

We trade a few dozen slashes before she makes a misstep, her foot slipping across the ground. 

_Gale Stance, Form Two._

Wind bursts out of my blade as I complete an incredible two-handed spin, the momentum of my blade crashing into her buckler. As expected, black lines flare up on the shield as the stasis seal triggers, but I’ve reinforced my arms extra well to negate most of the shock.

On the bright side, the raw impact of my blade fractures the hand holding the shield, if the sound and pained grimace she lets slip is anything to go by. 

Undeterred, I stomp a foot down and force more of my power into the blade, pulling every drop of energy into my sword.

_It’s not enough!_

Instinctively, I call upon my Veil, slipping deeper into it. The icy fire within me burns, but I hold it back and merely draw energy from it.

_More! More! More!_

Setsuna braces a second hand against the back of her shield, pressing more power into the seal. For a moment, our wills clash directly. The black lines tremble as my coldly resolved eyes meet her burning determination. 

But it isn’t enough to stop me.

**_“Breaker!”_ **

Her shield _screams_ as the lines shatter and I cleave the shield in two, my blade powering through and into Setsuna. She dodges in time to avoid the direct strike, but not fast enough to dodge the hammer of energy that smashes into her chest. 

A second sealing array forms over her shirt, absorbing as much of the energy as it can — but it can’t possibly stop the crushing force. Bones shatter and blood splatters as she’s sent rocketing back.

But she still stands, despite everything. Still maintains her footing, despite a horrific wound. Her gaze meets mine as she amasses an incredible amount of qi — _somehow_ — and smashes her hand into the ground, creating a massive wave of qi.

Explosions erupt everywhere — _seals_ , I realize dimly — but there aren’t so much as to be a problem. No, the problem is when the knives that were jammed into the ceiling erupt into massive explosions, somehow causing the _stasis seals protecting the arena to fail_ , sending the entire roof crashing down onto our heads.

I cringe as I gather more qi into myself, draining myself nearly dry. Even then, I’m forced to call on my Etheria, pain burning through my nerves as I push myself past my limits. 

_“Hurricane Sword!”_

While far weaker than my original attack, it’s sufficient to blow the debris directly above me into shards, leaving me to find Setsuna. She deals with her half of the falling debris by hurling a scroll above her that violently explodes, shattering any debris and letting the rest wash off her adaptive armor.

Spying an opportunity, I quickly wrap a qi thread around my blade and hurl it. I aim for the center of her chest, but Setsuna somehow feels it coming and manages to twist so that it hits her shoulder instead, going straight through as she lets out a gasp of pain. I move to smash her into the ground when she wraps both hands over the hilt of the sword, stormy eyes blazing with resolve.

A flash of light travels at bullet speeds between her hands and me, abruptly robbing me of my ability to move. Some…kind of paralysis? How?!

_She got me through the string!_

I’m not able to dodge when she hurls my own sword back at me, catching me through the stomach. By itself that wouldn’t have stopped me, but I find that I’m unable to use my qi, what little is left of it.

_She poisoned the blade too!? When did she—_

Footsteps fall behind me, then something hits me in the head and the world fades to black.


	65. (3.6.5) Fourth Star Examination, Part 5

#  **3.6.5 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Fourth-Star Examination, Part 5**

The boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness is fuzzy. Indistinct.

_ I’ve been knocked unconscious, then. So, what was I doing last? _

I remember a pain ripping through my body, a burning, tearing agony. Qi exhaustion. A stabbing pain through my abdomen. Darkness.

_ I was stabbed.  _

Absolute weakness. 

_ Poisoned. _

In conclusion?

_ You really don’t hold back, do you, Setsuna?  _

I force my way back into coherence.

…

I start abruptly, senses widening as I regain consciousness. Thanks to my mindscape, I’m not completely out of it, but it’s impossible not to be at least slightly dazed.

“Yuki...” A familiar voice whispers to me. A safe voice. Setsuna, yes? Yes. My eyes flutter open to confirm that, yes, Setsuna is there, cradling my head in her lap with a worried look on her face.

“…Hey, you…” I slur, still a little out of it. A concussion? Probably.

Her eyes reflect concern. 

“I’m…okay.” I answer her unspoken question. From what I can tell, I’m certainly not at any risk of dying. 

“Congratulations.” I whisper. 

A series of emotions flit through her eyes, too fast for me to pick up on. Eventually, she just smiles softly, a smile I return.

“Gods above, Yuki.” Hikaru mutters from somewhere behind me. Soon enough, her face appears above me. 

“Here.” She plants her hand on my chest, pumping qi into my body. Three seconds later, the qi suppressant is abruptly purged from my body.

_ Huh. It takes her three seconds what it takes me fifteen minutes to do. _

A moment later, I feel my wounds begin knitting themselves together, courtesy of Hikaru’s regenerative qi. My headache and weariness fade away

“We’d better get off the arena.” The medic mutters. “Setsuna, return to your balcony. I’m taking him to the medical bay.” 

“The—“ Setsuna looks mildly surprised, eyes darting between us. “Er, okay.” 

With one last glance towards me, she makes her way to the stairs. I make my way easily to my feet, the combination of Hikaru’s aberration and my own an incredible healing force.

“Good. Follow me.” 

Curtly, she walks off. A bit confused, I don’t protest and do as she says. 

Surprisingly enough, the medical bay — at least, the one associated with Arena 3 — is completely empty. Hikaru leads me to one of the beds and indicates that she wants me to sit down, so I do.

“You idiot…” She mutters angrily. “How much of it did you use?”

Her look makes it obvious that she can only be talking about one thing.

Closing my eyes, I evaluate myself. I needed it for that last  _ Stormbreaker _ against Sayaka...and I’d needed to use Etheria to charge  _ Hurricane Sword _ to defend myself from the falling ceiling.

Bloody hell, Setsuna had sabotaged the arena stasis seals. Arena seals written by a sealmaster. If that doesn’t get her some attention, I don’t know what will.

“Focus, Yuki.” Hikaru snaps, disapproval laced in her voice. 

“Five years?” I guess, based on what’s missing from me. 

Hikaru shakes her head. “You need to stop treating your soul like a renewable resource.” 

For a moment, I’m tempted to retort that it is technically a renewable resource, but such a flagrantly disrespectful remark would get even the typically-gentle Hikaru to slap me across the face, and deservedly so.

“Understood, Master.”

She shoots me a dry look. “...You’re just going to keep doing it, aren’t you?”

I shrug noncommittally. 

The woman shakes her head. “I hadn’t wanted to do this...but if you’re going to be like this, then I’ll just have to teach you how to use it properly.”

My eyes go wide. Hikaru’s...offering to teach me how to properly manipulate my Etheria? What would that even entail?

Right now, I’m only able to access it in order to temporarily empower an especially powerful technique or perform indirect healing. It’s too time-intensive to use for much else with any semblance of efficiency. It’s possible to force it out, but that’s both wasteful and damaging. 

I know better to ask that kind of thing here, though. After all, we’ve both been dancing around the topic as is. 

“Understood. Anyways, am I ready to return to the balcony?”

“Just about. Come here.” She motions for me to give her my hand, which I do. Closing her eyes, she concentrates—

I stiffen as I feel a tiny trickle of Etheria flow between us.

“Not much.” She lets go. “We don’t want to repeat your earlier episode, do we?”

I wince, remembering when I lost control of my Ice.

“Well, get back in there.” 

“Thanks, Master Hikaru.”

She waves me off, looking amused. Thus dismissed, I head up to the balcony. 

“And so he returns.” Sayaka smirks at me. The other ninja in the balcony give me their own assessing looks.

“What?”

“I’m impressed, Yuki.” She says quietly. “And I’m not the only one. That was...kind of awesome.”

“Thanks.” I reply softly. “As long as it leads to a promotion, I suppose.”

From my other side, Setsuna flashes me a small smile. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry.” 

I return her smile.

“And you, Setsuna, that was a hell of a performance. When’d you get that good?” The blunette asks, facing my petite partner.

“H-Huh?” The sealer flinches, caught off guard. “Well...I just did.”

The Wind Mistress leans over, pinching her cheek affectionately. “You and I are going to have sooo much fun together, I can tell.” 

“...What.” 

“Don’t you know, Setsuna? After we become fourth star ninja, we no longer have to work in our cells. And Mari’s pretty much a seventh-star ninja by now, isn’t she? So I can join your cell! Us three, with Mari as our leader!” Her eyes flash towards me, clearly cognizant of the true team dynamics...somehow.

“I...” The thought clearly hadn’t occurred to Setsuna. “I guess so, huh?”

“Yup!” Sayaka chirps, disturbingly brightly. “I’m looking forward to it!” 

“What about your team?” I ask, surprised. 

Sayaka bites her lip.

“They’re...still in development. Not ready to play at this level.” 

In a strange flash of insightfulness, I realize that how Sayaka feels now must have been how Mari had felt, way back when. Unlike Setsuna and I, though, her teammates aren’t as driven as we were, as determined, as talented.

As long as it’s been...I haven’t forgotten the way Setsuna and I had clawed our way up, from bright-eyed, skilled Academy graduates. I haven’t forgotten fighting Mari for the first time, having intimately felt the massive gulf in our abilities, and overcoming her anyways. Twice, even.

I’ve been blessed, certainly. I’ve received gifts no one else has — Hikaru’s apprenticeship, the knowledge of Etheria, having such a gifted sealer as my partner...even my Ice aberration, I suppose.

But still, Setsuna and I both have worked so very hard. Not just anyone could have made it here. I might have met Hikaru by chance, but making it through her apprenticeship was and still is brutal work. Working with Etheria carves my body apart and literally drains my soul. And my Ice Aberration? For all it has gifted me, it has come with at least as many drawbacks, the least of which is that it actively destroyed my humanity until I learned to control it.

Not any average ninja could have done that, made it through the trials I have. Skill, determination, drive...I’ve needed to give everything I had, and then keep on giving.

“I understand.” I say truthfully. Sayaka gives me an odd look, but doesn’t respond. 

Huh. 

“Sayaka, please report to the Fourth Arena for your third round bracket fight.”

“The fourth—?” Sayaka mutters, before glancing at the still-ruined Third Arena. “Right. Well, this’ll be quick. See you two soon.”

“See you.” I wave lazily. Setsuna doesn’t reply, apparently lost in thought.

…

“Yuki, please report to the Administrative Office for your Examination Results.” 

My heart thuds in my chest.

_ This is it. _

I don’t let myself think any further, shoving my thoughts into my Veil. They can wait. Now…all that’s left to do is accept the results. As I stand up, however, a hand catches my arm. Setsuna’s hand. I glance at her, confused, as she pulls herself to her feet and stands on her tiptoes, bringing her lips to my ear. 

_ Believe. _

She returns to her normal position, as if she hasn’t whispered anything at all. Blinking at her, I eventually shake it off and keep on moving, deciding to keep her words in mind. 

…

“Yuki, correct?” The kindly-looking young woman at the makeshift front desk asks. “They’re ready for you. Please, head inside.” She gestures to the door behind her.

“Right. Thank you.” I do as she says, and soon find myself in a poorly-lit room, only a single candle on a wooden desk in front of me.

The door closes and locks behind me.

From the shadows, a figure steps forward. They’re just a shade taller than me, and garbed in a long black robe that reaches down to their ankles, feet covered by a pair of sandals. A featureless white mask covers their face, eyes reflecting nothing but the candle-glow. 

“Yuki of Alune.” They bow to me, their voice low and solemn. Feminine. 

“Yes.” I return the gesture.

“You have overcome many trials to get to where you are today. You’ve worked unspeakably hard, determined to improve, to be a better ninja. There are eight traits all ninja must demonstrate before we will consider them eligible to move on to the fourth-star level.”

“The first is  _ loyalty.  _ You’ve acted to defend your comrades. To better them, even. These actions have been witnessed by those watching you, and have been noted appropriately.” 

“The second is  _ compassion. _ You’ve acted to defend your wards, even when you’ve thought them beneath you. Certainly, some of your actions have been…concerning…but, overall, you demonstrate enough of this to continue to grow. These actions have been witnessed as well.”

_ Kitaro and Mirai. And…Akane Akiyama. Shit. Guess it was too much to ask for that particular fuck-up to remain buried. _

“Today, you proved that you possessed the third trait,  _ intelligence… _ although you did not take advantage of the opportunity to gather intelligence prior to the examinations, and thus gain an advantage over your peers, you more than proved yourself in the analysis section. However, I would be remiss in my duties if I did not ask you  _ why _ you failed to gather information prior to the examination.”

I close my eyes, heart racing. 

“…To be honest, I had not treated this examination with the caution I should have.” I admit. “I was foolish. I assumed that I had long since been prepared for the examination, and had focused on getting stronger rather than passing. My Wind and Water proficiencies had only confirmed this belief in me. It was an unpleasant surprise to find that I  _ wasn’t  _ quite as strong as I thought.” 

“Indeed.” The hooded figure says. “Incidentally, the fourth trait is  _ humility _ . You can always better yourself. Never delude yourself into thinking you can not.”

“The fifth trait is  _ courage _ . Today, you demonstrated that you were willing to push yourself beyond your limits in an incredible third-round performance. Rather than surrendering, you fought to the bitter end, and nearly won. Had your final opponent not been so prepared for you, it is likely that you would have found victory in all three of your battles today, even without prior planning.”

“The sixth trait is  _ strength _ . You’ve proved that, both during combat against opponents stronger than you, and today, when you ran the gauntlet in all three rounds.”

“The seventh trait is  _ discipline _ . We watched that today from you as you pushed yourself to keep going even when it was easier to surrender.”

“Now, Yuki of Alune. What is the final trait?” 

As if from a mysterious wind, the candle in front of me goes out, plunging the room into pitch black. I don’t panic, though. I know the woman hasn’t moved. She’s simply watching, waiting to see my response.

“The eighth trait…?”

_ Believe. _

“The eighth trait is  _ spirit _ , is it not?”

There’s a long silence. 

“Yuki of Alune…congratulations on your promotion to fourth-star level.” I can sense the woman take a step forward, and soon enough, the candle sparks back to life. 

…Wait, sparks?

“Is that you, Mari?” I ask.

The woman reaches up, taking her mask off and revealing the familiar grinning face of my teammate. “I was wondering how long it’d take you to notice. Congratulations, Yuki.” 

I can’t help but resist a smile. “The hell was with the strange atmosphere? You almost made me nervous.” 

Mari’s eyes glitter with amusement. “There was no  _ almost _ about it. I can feel your heart pulsing in your chest.”

“…That’s just creepy.” I say dryly. “But, that’s it, then? I’m a real ninja and everything now?”

She shrugs. “Guess so. Go pick up your identification card. You’ll need this.” She tosses me a sealed scroll. “Nice fights, by the way. That was some cool stuff.” 

I shake my head, bemused. “I didn’t expect three fights in a row. That was rough.”

“…You were supposed to surrender at least one of them.” The Storm User says dryly. “No one at this level is expected to be able to handle that kind of sustained combat.” 

I shrug. “Guess I’m special.”

She laughs. “Alright, get out. I’ve gotta prepare Setsuna’s speech, and all of that. Shoo, shoo.”

I do so, sharing a brief smile. 

“Ah, wait, your official stats. Almost forgot to give you those.”

“Have they changed?” I ask, surprised.

“You bet. Here.”

**Yuki — Front-Line Specialist**

CQC: 5.5*

Ninja Arts: 6* 

Special:  **Wind** 6*  **Water** 4*  **Healing** 6.5* 

Strength: 4.5*

Speed: 6*

Stamina: 7*

Intelligence: 6.5* 

Stealth: 5.5*

Overall Combat: 6*

“Huh.” I say. 

Sixth-star level combatant? That’s insane. Even Mari, the ultra-gifted, super hard-working prodigy, is only a seventh-star. How on earth—?

“What is Sayaka, if I’m allowed to ask?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. It’s all ninja-classified, anyways…which you now have the authorization to know. Er, technically. You don’t have it  _ yet  _ without your card, but...shh.”

**Sayaka — Wind Mistress**

CQC: 4* (5*)

Ninja Arts: 6* (6.5*)

Special:  **Wind** 7*  **Healing** 5*

Strength: 3* (4.5*)

Speed: 5* (6.5*)

Stamina: 4.5*

Intelligence: 6.5*

Stealth: 5*

Overall Combat: 6*

Not surprising. Her numbers changed, but her combat level, already high, remained the same.

“And Setsuna?” 

“Ooh, she’s an…interesting one.”

**Setsuna — Seals Mistress**

CQC: 2* (4.5*)

Ninja Arts: 2* (6*) 

Special:  **Seals** 6*  **Battlefield Sealing** 7* 

Strength: 3* (5.5*)

Speed: 3.5* (6*)

Stamina: 2.5* (4.5*)

Intelligence: 6.5*

Stealth:  **[redacted]**

Overall Combat: 5.5*

I whistle. Even Setsuna’s statistically about at our level, now. Unsurprising. Even if I had been full in the tank, she would have been a challenge. The time has come and gone where I could bat Setsuna around like a puppy. I grin, thinking of our sword duels, so very long ago.

_ You really have grown, haven’t you? _

There’s one thing that obviously sticks out, though.

“Why is her stealth stat redacted?” I ask. 

Mari shrugs. “Sorry, you need seventh-level clearance for that.”

_ Figures. _

I’ll just ask Setsuna directly, I suppose. Still, I wonder what it means…?

“Congratulations, Yuki.” Mari says softly. 

I nod at the woman. “Thank you, Mari. For everything.” 

…

Setsuna comes out of the dark room a few minutes after we trade places, looking pleased with herself. I don’t even have to ask.

“Congratulations, Setsuna.” 

“Congratulations, Yuki.” She steps forward and hugs me, just for a brief moment. 

_ I’m surprised. Setsuna’s rarely this open about her emotions in public. She must  _ really  _ be happy.  _

Then again, I certainly can’t blame her. She’s put in so much work to keep up with all of us. 

_ Although, what’s up with that stealth stat? Not the time or place to ask, though. _

“Are you waiting for Sayaka?” Setsuna asks, face restored to its typical neutral state as she lets go. 

“Yeah. I thought we should hang out as a group, if we’re really going to start taking missions together with her as well.” 

To be completely honest, I hadn’t really looked into what life as a fourth-star ninja would entail. Some part of me…a part of me I’m ashamed of, but that exists nonetheless, was preparing for the possibility that Setsuna wouldn’t pass her examination. I wouldn’t have left her behind, in that case, even if it meant abandoning whatever privileges being a fourth star ninja would have conferred upon me.

“Smart thinking.” Setsuna replies blankly, as we move closer to the hallway.

I glance at her. “Are you truly okay with it?”

She shrugs. “I’m not particularly against the idea.” 

“But you’re not quite for it, either?”

She shrugs again. “I’m not particularly for the idea, either.” 

“Indifferent or suppressing?’

The sealer bites her lip. “…She’s certainly changed in some ways.”

I blink. Setsuna is being particularly ambiguous right now, and I’m not too sure what to make of it.

“For better or worse?”

“…Better.” She admits. 

“So what’s the problem?” I ask her directly.

“What role does she have in the team, Yuki?” She asks. 

_ Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. _

“You’re our leader and healer, and the most balanced member of the team. I’m the stealth specialist and utility expert. Mari is our power and brute force. Together, we’re able to cover nearly any situation with our combined specialities. In terms of dynamics, our teamwork is pretty solid, especially between me and you, which is important as we’re both infiltration and assassination specialists and therefore most likely to work together. Mari’s the most socially balanced and grounds us together, and again, you’re somewhere between her and I. So where does Sayaka fit into our team?” She asks.

_ Setsuna’s worried about the team balance? She’s not wrong, though. We have a very well-rounded team right now, and adding a new person  _ always  _ changes things. _

_ But— _

“I guess we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?” I reply mildly. Setsuna blinks, shocked. 

“I had the same thought, when Mari was first introduced to us. I wasn’t sure, either, how she would fit with us. But she did. She has. She’s filled a pivotal part of the team, both in terms of power as well as emotionally, and she’s become someone dear to both of us.”

“I know you don’t especially care for Sayaka, but…” I think about the interrogation exercise, and our personal interactions. “You’re wrong if you think that Sayaka won’t be able to fill roles in our team. As you say, I am the well-rounded, balanced person capable of filling any role decently, and you are the stealth and utility specialist. Mari, naturally, is the close-range specialist, although she can play alright from a distance. Do you know what we don’t have? A caster specialist. Sayaka is  _ precisely _ that. Someone who has a level of finesse and control regarding their techniques that none of us have.” 

“As for the emotional roles, I don’t think she’d be especially detrimental for any of us. Sayaka and I already get along well, and I don’t think she’d conflict with Mari. At worst, her particular brand of humor might mildly annoy Mari, but that’s it. The only concern is with you and her, but you’re not telling me what the problem is.”

The tension seems to drain out of Setsuna, then. 

“I…see. That…that sounds okay. But, Yuki…” The expression on her face grows serious as her voice lowers.

“If she becomes a problem, I won’t hesitate—“

“If she becomes a problem—” I cut her off, not wanting to hear her finish that sentence, “—Then I’ll remove her from the team myself.” 

Setsuna looks satisfied with that, nodding sharply once at me.

“But seriously, what’s your problem with—“ 

The door opens, and Sayaka waltzes out, her trademark smirk on her face. 

“Congratulations, you two.” She says. “I heard the news. Looks like we all made it.”

“So we have.” I reply. “Yay for us.” 

“Come on, let’s go get our cards together.” Sayaka says cheerfully. 

I take a step forward, then stop and turn as I realize Setsuna hasn’t moved. The blunette in front of me notices a moment after, turning to face her.

“Setsuna?” She asks. 

Quietly, face blank, Setsuna twists her wrist, a soft blue glow highlighting the object she unseals in the simple motion. A card.

…Setsuna’s Fourth Star Ninja Identification Card. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raise your hand if you saw that one coming.


	66. (3.6.6) Fourth Star Examination, Part 6

#  **3.6.6 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Fourth-Star Examination, Part 6**

My heart drops as I realize the implications.

“Setsuna…you were already a fourth-star ninja?” I breathe, stunned. Behind me, Sayaka gasps, realizing the implications a second late.

We just became fourth-star ninja moments ago. There had been absolutely no way for her to get a card prior to this…unless, of course, she’d  _ already been one before the examination. _

She glances at me, an unreadable look on her face.

“We’ll talk later. Go get your cards and meet up with Mari or something. See you tonight.”

Turning around, she leaves the room at a remarkably swift pace.

“S-Setsuna?” I ask, bewildered. “Wait!”

I chase after her, but by the time I get into the hallway, she’s completely vanished. I try to get a read on her qi signature, but I can’t pick anything out from the ambient air. Maybe a better sensor could have found something, but even if they were here and prepared, Setsuna’s  _ ridiculously _ good at hiding her presence when she doesn’t want to be found. It’s rarely come into play, but…

Shaking my head, I return to where Sayaka’s waiting, bemused. 

“She really doesn’t like me, huh?” The blunette asks mildly. 

I shake my head helplessly. “I have to admit that I have no idea what’s been going through her mind recently.”

She’s just been acting so…strange. Especially in this recent examination, she’s always felt..a step ahead of me, somehow. I hadn’t had the faintest clue that she was already a fourth-star ninja, for starters. And all those hints she’d dropped…?

I’m…not sure how to interpret this. Any of this. 

It bothers me, and scares me, that I don’t know what’s going on with her any longer. It wasn’t that long ago that we were exactly on the same wavelength. All I know is that we’re long overdue for a talk…and soon. 

The Wind Mistress sighs softly.

“Let’s go, then.” 

…

The walk to the office is short and quiet. It seems that Sayaka isn’t really sure what to say, and looks a bit weary besides. 

I can understand where she’s coming from. I’m feeling the heavy weight of exhaustion, too, even though I’m dulling it with the Veil. It’s a testament to just how worn I am, physically and spiritually.

Eventually, we arrive, hand the scrolls we were given over, and receive our cards. 

…I don’t really feel different.

We start walking home, still quiet for a while. Eventually, however, Sayaka breaks the silence. 

“Hey, Yuki?”

“Yes?”

“If it’ll cause problems…you don’t have to bring me into your team.” 

I glance in surprise at the blunette, but she’s not done. 

“I’d…figure something out. You know I will.”

“Where’s this coming from?” I ask, surprised. 

“I don’t want to break something between you and Setsuna.” She says flatly.

“Hm…well, I guess I’ll keep that in mind.” I reply dryly. “Unless you ritually sacrificed her first-born son, however, I’m not going to accept you  _ not _ being on my team.”

“…What?”

“Come now, Sayaka.” I gently elbow her in the side. “I love hanging out with you, even if you’re a weird dork of a rival.” 

Despite her attempts at being serious, a disbelieving snort slips out from her. 

“I’m not a—“

“ _ Like it? I present to you…Turbulent Air!”  _ I mimic in a rough approximation of her voice.

“That was one time!” She gripes, but there’s a small and more importantly  _ genuine _ smile on her face. “You have no idea how proud I was for figuring it out. How proud I still  _ am. _ ” 

“It is an impressive technique.” I acknowledge freely. 

We walk in silence for a few moments.

“Are you—“

“Positive.”

Uncharacteristically, Sayaka flushes bright red.

“You’re an idiot, Yuki.” Despite the harsh words, there’s a clear undertone of happiness in her voice, so I merely smile and continue walking.

...

“This is Mari’s house.” I introduce to Sayaka. 

“I know.” She says dryly. “I saw you leaving it a few months ago, remember?”

“...Oh.” I say, not having thought of that. “Well, here it is anyways. And inside the house—“

“I’m not there.” A voice behind us says. We both whirl to reveal a grinning Mari behind us. “Hey.”

“When’d you get that stealthy?” I ask, surprised.

Mari shrugs. “It isn’t really my thing, but I have to be at least a sixth-star in stealth before I can complete my promotion.”

“Oh, really?” Sayaka asks, surprised. “I didn’t know about that requirement.”

Mari shrugs ruefully. “It’s because of how low it was when I was promoted.

That’s right, if I remember correctly...?

**Mari**

**Front-Line Powerhouse**

CQC: 7.5*

Ninja Arts: 6*

Special:  **Storm** 7*

Strength: 5* (6.5*)

Speed: 6.5* (8.5*)

Stamina: 5*

Intelligence: 5.5* 

Stealth: 3.5*

Overall Combat: 7*

“Have you gotten a stat evaluation recently?” I ask, curious. Her eyes light up.

“I have! This is what I got.”

**Mari**

**Front-Line Powerhouse**

CQC: 8*

Ninja Arts: 6.5*

Special:  **Storm** 7.5*

Strength: 6* (7.5*)

Speed: 7.5 (9*)

Stamina: 6.5 

Intelligence: 6*

Stealth: 5.5*

Overall Combat: 8*

“Woah.” Sayaka mumbles. “That much in two years?”

“Two years, six months.” I correct. “And look how much we’ve done. We’ll catch up to her in no time.”

The Wind Mistress glances at me. “How? You know that it gets much, much harder to climb the ranks once you hit sixth-star. People like Mari are considered elite for a reason.”

“Mmm, I dunno.” Mari muses. “Right now, I think Yuki would have been a match for the Mari that wiped the floor with him and Setsuna six months ago.”

I glance at her, surprised, then contemplate her words.

Mari...at that level, she had been amazingly fast. Her signature reflexes weren’t any lower than compared to now, making every step she took meaningful. Her speed? Blistering fast. In her Storm Cloak, she was close to perhaps my absolute fastest speed with Wind Enhancement.

With her incredible Storm Qi, I couldn’t hope to face her in a pure strength engagement. A straight power fight is out as well, due to the way her element counters mine.

In fact, the only things I had on her as she was back then were stamina, intelligence, and stealth…which, while all useful qualities, probably wouldn’t have been sufficient to defeat her. But Mari seems to think otherwise. 

“Anyways, Mari…” Sayaka changes the topic, “I was wondering when you were planning on leading missions. You need a fourth, right?”

“Wondering if we were recruiting?” Mari asks bluntly, a small grin on her face.

Sayaka hesitates a little, caught off guard by how straightforward Mari is, but recovers admirably. “Yes.”

“You’re asking the wrong person.” 

“...Huh. I’d suspected, but...” Sayaka glances at me out of the corner of my eye. “You were leading them around as a third-star?”

“Second-star.” Mari corrects. “From the very beginning, pretty much.”

Sayaka seems to find this funny, for some reason.

“Well, Yuki, are you accepting applications?” Sauntering up to me, she looks me in the eye and grins.

Huh. Sayaka’s actually almost as tall as I am. I hadn’t noticed. 

“Sure. Did you bring yours with you?” I retort.

The blunette blinks, caught off guard for a moment. “Ah, yes. I have it right here...”

With a grand gesture, she flicks her wrist, a paper napkin appearing a moment later. 

_ Huh. Since when has Sayaka started looking into seals of any kind? _

“Here it is.” 

I give her a dry look. 

“Application rejected.”

“On what grounds?” 

“Not enough information.”

“Oh, it isn’t big enough for you, then?” Sayaka thrusts her hand out, unsealing a massive scroll. A bit of qi forces it to rapidly unseal, the parchment rapidly unravelling for dozens of meters down the road.

“…I’ve seen bigger.” 

“…Damn it, Setsuna.” A flick of the wrist and a burst of Wind brings the scroll rolling back up in what I have to admit is a particularly impressive level of control. 

_ Hikaru’s definitely her mentor. _

“Anyways, you’re — probationally — a member of our team. Congratulations, I guess.” I say dryly. 

“Probation?!” She squawks. 

I shrug. “Until further notice. Let’s run a few missions together and I’ll decide. I’m pretty sure you’ll fit just fine, though. We don’t really have a long-range specialist nor a caster, which suits you well.” 

Sayaka nods. “Right. So is it team bonding day for us, Mari?” 

“You guys aren’t tired?” Mari asks, sounding surprised. “Especially you, Yuki, aren’t you…?”

“Meh.” I reply. All my injuries have been healed and my qi is slowly but surely replenishing myself. A long history of ignoring qi overstrain helps to dull the pain, as does the Veil. I’m not particularly relying on the latter, though — I just rarely keep it completely  _ open _ , so to speak. “I think I should go check on Setsuna, though.”

The brunette shakes her head. “Kids these days…”

Sayaka smirks. “That two year age gap must really be weighing on you.” 

Mari snorts. “Right. Well, come inside then. I guess I’ll make you tea or something.” 

“Tea? How very modern of you. Or is it just because you’re saving up your prune juice?” 

The Storm User opens the door, a small grin on her face. “Sadly, some sacrifices have to be made in the line of duty. Welcome to my home, and all of that.” 

“Thanks?” The blunette waves at me over her shoulder, then steps inside. “…And what the fuck’s up with that table? Compensating for something?”

The door closes. 

_ Yeah, they’ll be fine. Mari’s too apathetic to seriously care about Sayaka’s brand of humor, I think. Or…no, perhaps ‘easy-going’ is the right word?  _

Smiling softly, I turn to my house.

_ Now…I just have to deal with my last teammate. Damn it, Setsuna, you had to go and make everything complicated, didn’t you? _

Ah, well. It’s worth it. 

_ She’s worth it. _

…

“…You probably have some questions for me, don’t you?” Setsuna mumbles by way of greeting. I’d found the girl in our bedroom, sitting on the bed and apparently having been patiently waiting for me.

“A few.” I say dryly. “The problem now is where to begin.”

She manages to look a little bit guilty at that.

“I…About certain things, I’ve been…the fourth-star examination…” Setsuna mumbles almost incoherently. 

“I suppose that explains some of your secretive behavior recently.” I reply easily. “However, why did you hide the fact that you were a fourth-star at all? If you were promoted prior to the examination — and I do want to know how that happened — then you could have skipped out on it entirely.”

She mutters something too quietly to catch.

“What was that?”

“…I…I wanted to have another fight with you.” 

“…Seriously?” I ask in disbelief.

Uncharacteristically, Setsuna’s face turns flaming red. 

“I just…I…”

I shake my head ruefully, grabbing the girl in a hug. She squeaks, but doesn’t otherwise protest.

“You’re so stupid, Setsuna. Why didn’t you just say so?”

“It’s different…when it’s an examination. I wanted to…show off a little, I guess. To show you and Mari and everyone that I wasn’t as helpless as you thought.”

I hum thoughtfully. “…Is this about the assassination mission?” 

Her head snaps up so that she can look at me. “Do you know how it felt, being told to hide in the back while you risked your life to fight two opponents of unknown power by yourself? You won, yes, but  _ only _ because they were so unused to proper combat between ninja. That  _ hurt, _ Yuki. I’ve been working so hard to fight on your level and you pushed me away like I’m a child that needs their hand held!” By the end of her speech, her eyes are blazing bright with determination. 

“I needed to prove to myself, and prove to you…that I  _ could _ fight on even grounds with you. I wouldn’t call us equal, not with the amount of trickery I had to use to set that fight up…but I  _ did _ fight you nonetheless.” 

“You did.” I say softly. “You did. And I acknowledge that, Setsuna, but you’re so very mistaken about one thing. I’ve  _ never _ thought you were weak.” A brief hum of energy conjures a thin pane of ice in my hand, which I hold up in front of Setsuna so that she can see her reflection. “This isn’t the face of someone  _ weak _ . Those aren’t the eyes of a helpless child. And I see that every day. You’re strong, Setsuna. And I know that. Strong, and smart, and so very determined and  _ inventive _ .” 

“I just don’t want you to get hurt, Setsuna. I know that’s an incredibly stupid thing to say. We’re ninja, after all. But still…I  _ want _ to protect you, Setsuna, because I care so much about you.” Her features soften slightly at the admission. “I’ve…I’ve already failed, once. I don’t want to fail again.” 

“You’re an idiot.” She says softly. “I don’t want to see you get hurt either, Yuki…so please, please don’t brush me to the side like that. Let me fight by your side.”

_ Oh, Setsuna…there’s really no choice, is there? I wish you weren’t a ninja in the first place. I just want to be the shield to your sword, but I’ve been forgetting that a sword is meant to be  _ **_used_ ** .

“I…I understand, Setsuna. Alright.”

Her fingers dig into me as she holds me tight. 

“Did you know your stealth stat is officially redacted?” I ask instead, figuring that it is a safer topic.

“Oh, yeah. That’s because it’s at the eighth-star level, which is unusual enough to hide. It’ll be declassified later.”

“Eighth-star?” I ask in disbelief. “How the hell?”

“...I broke into the Department of Records instead of the examination building and got the records of everyone. It, uh. Turns out that wasn’t a thing you were supposed to do.”

My jaw drops.

“…Yeah. That would do it. Damn, you’re really something else, aren’t you?” I shake my head. As interesting as that is, there’s something more important. So, Setsuna…what’s up with your dislike of Sayaka?”

She looks up at me ruefully. “I wish you would forget about that. Haven’t I explained it to you already?”

I snort. “Please. You’ve given me a very valid professional reason for objecting to her, but I can tell that you have personal problems with her, too.” 

A long, aggravated sigh slips from the sealer’s lips. 

_ Huh. That’s an unusual reaction.  _

“I haven’t really forgiven her for the Interrogation Exercise.” 

“Ah...” I remember Setsuna’s nearly  _ violent _ reaction when Sayaka had encountered us, that late night as I’d tried to purge a long-forgotten terror...

...More importantly, though, I’ve come to realize — just because  _ I’m  _ not bothered by it doesn’t mean that  _ she _ isn’t. The events of the last few months, that night in the hospital room...I’ve learned. 

But I don’t know how to resolve this difference, either. Even if I’m aware of it, actually fixing it is something I don’t know how to do. Maybe I won’t be able to, ever. In the end, I just wind up hugging her some more. It seems to be an approach we’re both satisfied with.

_ Soon, Setsuna. Soon I’ll be able to tell you how I feel about you.  _


	67. (3.6.7) Fourth Star Examination, Closing

#  **3.6.7 Spellborne — Book 1**

#  **Fourth-Star Examination, Closing**

“We’re moving back?” I ask, dismayed.

Mother nods. “There’s more than a few reasons, but the most important one is that things should be safe now. It has been months since we left, after all.”

“But...” I cut myself off. Although my parents are grateful for what Yuki and Aunty Mari have done...they still seem scared, somehow. Like being around them is dangerous. That doesn’t make any sense...being around strong people makes you safer! They’re so dumb!

Lots of practice makes me know this would be a waste of time to say, though, so I just turn away angrily.

“Mirai, wait!”

A knock on the door interrupts my response, both our heads whipping in the direction of the door.

I’m even more alarmed when the door suddenly unlocks itself and opens up. Even so, I still prepare to run if necessary, grabbing Kitaro from his room and—

“Good afternoon.” A familiar voice says. Eyes wide, I turn around—

It’s Yuki and Aunty Mari!

I want to say hello, but something tells me—

“Won’t you say hello too, Mirai?” Yuki says, eyes glittering with amusement. 

“A-Ah, hi, Yuki.” 

They’ve visited semi-frequently to check on how we’re doing, Mari far more so than Yuki. I always look forward to both of their visits, as does Kitaro. 

“Ah, here again?” Mother asks. 

“Yep. We’ve noticed something a little disturbing and wanted to get your opinion on it.” He says. 

“Er…my opinion? What is it?”

“Why are you moving?” Mari asks innocently.

“I…moving?”

“Your bags are packed.” Yuki says simply. “Everything is unnaturally clean. I could tell through the window. It’s pretty obvious that you’re planning to move out.” 

“I, yes…”

“You weren’t planning on heading back, were you?”

“I—“

“It’s dangerous, Ms. Matsushima.” Mari says gently. 

“But…it’s been months already, hasn’t it? The issue hasn’t been resolved yet?”

Mari shakes her head. “We’ve been working on it, but…it’s hard.”

Yuki gives her a strange look. I don’t know what it means.

“The criminal elements in question have penetrated quite deeply…and with their weapons, they’re actually a bit dangerous, even to us.” Mari continues.

“Then…what will you guys do?”

Yuki smiles confidently.

“They aren’t the only ones who have been working hard.” He clenches his fist, and for just a moment, I can feel a deep sense of strength from him. “We’re ready, now.”

“We’re going to finish the mission we started.” 

  
  



	68. (3.7.1) Bloom, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're starting to move into the endgame of Act 3. Just 3 more arcs left (one of which is an interlude arc)!

#  **3.7.1 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Bloom, Part 1**

As we leave the building, I can’t help but ask. “I didn’t know you were looking into on all of that.” 

Mari shrugs. “We suspended the mission, but I didn’t give up on it. I’ve been watching the situation…and to be honest, it’s not pretty.”

“Hm…” I muse over the situation. “Mari, are you qualified to run a full mission yet?”

“Er, as long as everyone is a fully fledged ninja, sure. You guys all have your cards, right?” 

“Yup.”

“You’re thinking what I’m thinking, right?”

“Initiation mission?”

“Yep. In-village, but nonetheless a challenging infiltration and combat mission. It’s been over a month since the examination without any missions at all, and I’m sure everyone’s getting antsy.”

“Alright. Round everyone up.”

...

Rose Garden Operation, Addendum

_6S:7S_

_Assigned: 3-4S, *7S | 2H_

_Leader: Mari_

_Objective: Locate the source of the drugs found at the Rose Garden Park in the South sector of the city. If possible, eliminate or apprehend any criminal elements identified in relation to the drugs. If necessary, retreat for backup._

_Update: Non-User criminal elements found to be related to the source of the drugs, as well as responsible for a variety of other crimes. They are armed with special firearms that pierce qi techniques and Resistance, and resists healing. Locating the source of these firearms is now a critical priority. Additionally, at least some members of the criminal element have some sort of means to detect Users. Mission difficulty and importance has risen to reflect this update._

_Update: Neighborhood conditions have worsened since last formal scouting. Multiple ninja have been slain around the area. Take extreme caution._

“This is a pretty interesting mission you’ve found.” Sayaka mutters, looking over the scroll. We’re all gathered in Mari’s dining area, her massive table coincidentally being a good place to spread out a scroll and several maps.

“Actually, we’ve been sitting on it for a while.” I admit.

Sayaka glances at me. “Let me guess...you were the reason for the update.”

“Yup.”

“Got shot?”

“Yup.”

“That sucks.”

“Yup.”

Mari snickers at the byplay. “We do have to figure out what to do about their ninja countermeasures, though. They’re dangerous.”

“Air support.”

I blink at the surprising answer from Setsuna. 

“What do you mean?”

“Sayaka is a Wind Mistress, so she’s capable of flight. With reinforcement, it wouldn’t be hard for her to perform reconnaissance.”

The woman in question frowns. “How would I get information to you?”

Setsuna smiles, blue light flickering into existence around her fingers. “Oh, I think I can come up with a way.”

…

“I can’t believe those stupid food seals actually made something useful.” 

A seal abruptly triggers on a small holder at my waist. Glaring ruefully at it, I notice that a scroll has filled the holster, and I pick it up and unroll it.

_[Test test test_

_Yuki is a big poopyhead_

_Test test test]_

Scowling at Sayaka’s neat handwriting, I unseal a graphite pencil, scrawl my own message back, and roll the scroll up, sliding it back inside. Charging the seal in the holster, the scroll abruptly vanishes.

A thud on the roof heralds the Wind Mistress’s return to earth, and she comes in through the unlocked door a moment later. A similar holster is attached to her waist, as well.

“Really?” She asks dryly.

“What?” I retort, unrepentant. She unrolls the scroll, showing me a drawing.

“Why did you draw a dick?" From behind me, Mari lets out a surprised snort.

Naturally, I correct her. “What? No! It’s a portrait of you.”

Sayaka laughs, a genuine smile flittering across her face. Moments later, Setsuna comes in from the other room, a third holster in her hands. “Did it work?”

“From four hundred meters away, yes.”

“Hm…we’ll have to test later, then, what the range is. Or if there even is one. The qi cost gets higher the longer the range is, that much I know.”

I glance sympathetically at Setsuna. It’s likely very hard for her to send the scroll farther than a few dozen meters, if even that. It’s a useful invention, and one that I think might even start seeing some use amongst other ninja as a useful tool should it not have any major drawbacks. It’s just not one she herself can use effectively.

“Setsuna, can you teach me how to prepare the seals for the scrolls?” Sayaka asks. “In case we use up the entire scroll, I’d like to be able to prepare my own.”

“You’re learning about seals?” Setsuna asks, surprised.

“Yeah. They’re too useful not to learn the very basics. You’ve made that obvious, after all, what with your performance in the examination. I want to be able to recognize all of the common seals and guess at foreign ones, and make some of the simpler ones. Right now, I can only do basic storage.”

“Hm...alright.” Setsuna says agreeably, to my surprise. I would have anticipated a firm rejection, so to see her go along with it…I wonder what she’s thinking?

“Great, thanks!” Sayaka looks almost as surprised, but looks pleased nonetheless. 

“Well, the air support’s one thing...” Mari interjects, “But what about the rest? We have to have contingencies for all of that. Having the support is useful, but doesn’t outright remove the problem.”

“I’m more curious about what exactly could cause something to have anti-healing properties.” Sayaka muses.

The Storm User sends me a thoughtful look. I’d healed her with relatively few problems, after all. 

“It resists healing through a means I’m not sure of.” I say, recalling the incident. “I suspect that information itself will be important, so let’s see if we can’t interrogate someone who knows something about it. As for the practicals…well, don’t get shot. I know enough civilian healing to keep you alive, but…well, don’t get hit. Do all of you have defenses to get around bullets with qi-piercing properties?”

Setsuna frowns. “I have the stealth to completely avoid detection.”

Mari looks like she’s about to protest before remembering that Setsuna possesses the ability to utterly zero out her aura. In fact, Setsuna is probably going to be the most useful asset for this mission outright. Hm.

“When you got shot, Yuki, how did you survive?” Sayaka asks.

“Wind.” I say. “I…blew the shots away with wind force. Huh. Indirect blocking, then?”

“You tell me.” Sayaka says, amused. “Did it work?”

“Well…yes.”

“There’s that, then.” 

“…I have an idea.” Setsuna murmurs distractedly, still inscribing seals on the holster with a finger. “Bullets do damage through two methods — the path of the bullet and potential shrapnel, and the kinetic force that it imparts, which damages surrounding tissues and organs.”

“Following you so far.”

“If your reinforcement won’t protect you from the former, why not change it to protect you from the latter?”

Sayaka understands immediately. “You mean…cushioning your organs?”

_That’s one of the things Hikaru’s teaching me!_

Reinforcement uses the skin as a medium. It’s pretty simple and intuitive. Setsuna’s suggesting an entirely new method of reinforcement — _internal_ reinforcement, which would provide protection from blunt blows, crush pressure, and other forms of attack designed to pierce typical reinforcement — at least, to an extent.

Setsuna nods decisively, putting the holster down on the table. “I do it.” 

_Figures._

“I’ve never been shot before, so I’m not sure if it will work or not, but…” She frowns, then unseals a pistol and throws it to me. I catch it, already anticipating and dreading her next request. 

“Shoot me.”

“W-Wait, hold on—” Mari begins interjecting. I stare at her serious expression before leveling the firearm at her abdomen and pulling the trigger. 

“What the hell!?” Mari shouts, instinctively dodging away as she claps her hands over her ears, wincing at the sound. “Don’t get blood on my carpet!” 

Luckily for Mari’s carpet, I’ve caught the falling blood with a current of Wind. Sayaka molds her qi with mine, working to collect it into a sphere. Setsuna stares impassively at her stomach, applying pressure to the entry wound to stifle the bleeding. There doesn’t seem to be an exit wound.

“Yuki, could you—“ 

Sayaka abruptly seizes control of the blood ball we’ve created, leaving me free to go over and heal her. Running a hand over her abdomen, I scan her body with medical qi, getting a feel for what lies inside. However—

“Relax your reinforcement.” I instruct her. “It’s causing interference with my qi scan.”

She dissipates the qi, letting me see what’s inside. 

“…The bullet barely penetrated at all.” 

Forget an exit wound, it hadn’t even made it halfway through her body. It’s easy to pluck the bullet from her body and seal up the wound. She’s right — her reinforcement seems to have protected even the surrounding tissues, so it’s practically a clean stab wound. And bullets are tiny, compared to something like a sword stab wound. 

“It won’t be like that with those guns, especially not any rifles. But the damage should be less. If you suffuse your body with qi the same way you do with your skin…well, it isn’t hard.”

 _She’s right_.

It takes me less than a second to get it — I do the same with Etheria nowadays, after all. Actually, the only person who might struggle with this is Mari—

“Huh. This is actually really easy.”

_Or not. Wonder if it’s a quirk of her aberration?_

Glancing at Mari, I realize that I’m not able to detect any change in her aura. In fact, it’s slightly less — because she’s holding it in, maybe? 

_So we can use this while remaining undercover, huh?_

“Alright, so there’s that.” I say, silently recognizing that this _internal reinforcement_ will also be particularly helpful against Sayaka and her penchant for crushing force. “Well, that’s about as much as we can prepare for this. The best answer is still to avoid getting shot, though.”

“Good idea, our wise leader.” Sayaka says dryly. “So I assume Setsuna is going in by herself, I’m going in from above, and you and Mari are going to be together?”

“That’s the plan right now.” I say. “Mari and I aren’t even going to be trying to hide the fact that we’re ninja. We’ll be drawing as much attention as we can, leaving Setsuna to freely infiltrate. Sayaka, you’ll be coordinating from the skies and looking for anything of interest. Right now, we just need information. There’s a couple ways to get that — either Setsuna finds something of use, or we capture our attackers and interrogate them for information until we figure out where everything’s located.”

“Sounds good.” The Storm User says, looking slightly vengeful.

_Someone’s motivated._

“Do you have any active defense to avoid getting shot, Mari?” I ask. 

She flashes a crooked grin. “If I’m moving too fast for them to track, they can’t shoot me no matter what they do.”

I snort. “Fair enough, I suppose.”

“This is still really risky.” Setsuna murmurs. “If you guys get shot in the head this time…”

I shrug. “It’s not impossible, certainly. But our girl in the air should be able to identify any potential snipers.”

The blunette shakes her head. “I’m not going to identify potential snipers. It’ll take you too long to see the message, if they’re quick enough about the shot. I’ll just take them out.”

“Do you have anything precise and long-ranged enough for that?” I ask, surprised. “How high will you be?”

She shrugs. “Five hundred meters or so. And of course I do.”

“Huh.” I say, surprised. Something that can be aimed, a five hundred meter drop...

Oh.

“You’re just going to drop rocks on them, aren’t you?” I ask.

She smirks, confirming my suspicions. Well, it’ll be fine — as blatant and straightforward as the idea is, it’ll work. She has the control to path the projectiles down to where they need to be, and even a near miss would serve to disrupt a sniper’s focus.

“Well...I guess now all that’s left is to do it.” I say. “Any other concerns?”

Everyone shakes their heads.

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty, but such is the case with scouting missions. Just be careful, and stay alert. We’ll meet here at 8 in the morning for a final debrief, then move out. Dismissed.”

It’s a strange feeling, not having Katsuo with us. Any missteps, any failure...legally, it will be put at Mari’s feet, but I’ll know who’s really to blame. Have I done everything I could?

“Sorry, scratch that. Meet here the day after tomorrow. I’ve got some stuff I need to look into.”

“…Hey, Mari, can I talk to you real quick?” I hear Sayaka asking as I leave the room, their voices quickly becoming too soft to hear.

…

Sadly, Hikaru isn’t home tonight, forcing me to return home without the knowledge I seek. I guess I’ll have to find her tomorrow.

“Welcome back.” Setsuna says distractedly, eyes not rising from where she’s working on the ground, a scroll in front of her. 

“Thanks.” I reply, taking the moment to pat her head a few times. She doesn’t reply, but her aura seems to _warm_ , for lack of a better term. 

Smiling slightly, I head up to my bedroom, then flinch as a weight suddenly drops onto my waist. 

_The communication scroll?_

_[Test.]_

Surprised, I head into the bedroom, spread the scroll on the floor, and send a response.

_[Sayaka?]_

_[Yup. Pretty neat, right? I’ve got to say…I’m pretty impressed.]_

_[Yeah, Setsuna’s really gotten good. I’m glad for the Fourth-Star Examination — it really brought out her potential.]_

_[She’s not the only one, though. I really thought I’d beat you, heh.]_

_[You_ were _close.]_

_[Not close enough.]_

_“I have to be the best. I have to win. Otherwise, if I lose…I’ll die. That’s how this ninja world works, isn’t it?”_

That’s right…all those months ago, Sayaka divulged to me her mindset, her worldview…

_[I suppose so. Disappointed in yourself again?]_

_[A little less so than last time, I guess. I did a lot better.]_

_[That you did.]_

_[You’re such a sweetheart.]_

_[Has your worldview changed since the last time we spoke on it?]_

Her reply is a lot longer in coming this time.

_[It has. I’m not so scared, I guess. Of dying. Not as much now, you know?]_

_[Why is that?]_

Another long pause.

_[I have a stronger team around me.]_

_[Flatterer.]_

_[Ass.]_

I smile, then remember something important.

_[Mind talking to Hikaru a bit for me tomorrow? I want her opinion on the anti-healing properties of bullets, as well as the countermeasures we’ve prepared.]_

_[Sure. What’ll you be up to?]_

_[Consulting with my own handler for the same reason. He’s a Steel Aberrant.]_

_[My, that does sound useful. Worried?]_

_[Of course I am. There’s too many unknowns for this mission. About the only thing useful is that we’ll be in home territory.]_

_[I trust you, Yuki. We’ll be fine.]_

_[Thanks. Good night, Sayaka.]_

_[Good night.]_

_[Hold on to the scroll so you can report to me.]_

_[Alright.]_

My eyes narrow at her cheek.

In lieu of a proper response, I draw another ‘portrait’ and send it back. This time, the holster remains empty.

“What an idiot.” I mutter, smiling fondly. Shaking off the bizarre sense of warmth I feel, I reattach the holster to my belt before heading outside. 

“Setsuna, I’m going to head over to Mari’s house real quick.”

“Hm? This late?” She glances up at me. “For what?” 

“I’m going to coordinate some plans with her for the mission, since we’ll be both on the front line. I’m going to reveal the fact that I’m Hikaru’s apprentice.” 

“Ah, is this from when you got shot?” 

“Exactly.”

I’m glad she was able to figure it out. Those bullets have anti-healing properties of some kind, yet I’d easily healed Mari. Some explanation for that needs to be given to her.

“Mm…understood. Try not to be back too late.”

“I won’t.” 

She flashes me a sweet smile before returning to her work.

…

“What’s up?” Mari asks, letting me inside. 

“I need to know how much you’ve figured out from your own explorations back into the Rose Garden sector. You’ve been going in on your own, haven’t you?”

She grimaces. “I have, yes. I’d say the local criminal elements know my face quite well by now.” 

I give her a dry look. “Just how much have you done?”

“Mm…give or take, fifteen takedowns. I haven’t been able to confiscate a weapon because the damn things are booby-trapped. Other than that? Nothing. Whenever I get too deep into the area, I get shot at. I’ve captured some people and I’m guessing that’s where our updated intelligence comes from, but I’ve never gotten my hands on anyone higher up than a simple thug.” 

“Not bad. Looks like they’re pretty cautious, too. Not good.” 

_Then again, to operate so blatantly in a ninja-controlled territory, they’d have to be at least moderately intelligent._

I rapidly begin constructing a mental profile of everything we know. What appears to be a typical civilian gang, except they’re armed with bizarrely powerful and unique weaponry that is—

That are _designed_ to kill ninja.

My eyes narrow. Standard guns are sufficient to kill any civilian and most ninja, when applied correctly. That’s the only reason civilian criminal elements are able to operate at all in our land. The weaponry they’re using are _specifically designed_ to kill ninja, and to do so _sneakily_ — 

_I don’t like where this is going._

High-powered rifles, silenced so much that they can be used to kill _without alerting the night patrol._ Empowered to penetrate qi resistance and even multiple forms of ninja defense. 

“Mari, have you managed to retrieve any bullets?”

The Storm User looks perplexed. “Well…no. I’ve tried, believe me. They’re never there, even if I check right after.” 

_I’m positive there was a bullet when I was shot. I know the difference in feeling._

_So if she can’t find any, then…_

“…Are you saying the bullets are disappearing?” I ask softly.

Mari freezes.

“I see the problem.” 

There isn’t any kind of civilian technology that would do that. Once that’s ruled out, there’s only two possibilities…

_Either a ninja from this village is supplying them with qi-empowered weaponry…_

**_Or a foreign enemy is._ **

_On the bright side, this revelation should distract Mari from inquiring about my mysteriously powerful healing after all._

  
  



	69. (3.7.2) Bloom, Part 2

#  3.7.2 — Spellborne, Book 1

#  Bloom, Part 2

“Good morning, Hikaru and Katsuo.”

“Good morning, my unusually respectful apprentice.” Hikaru says with a wry smile. “Come in, Yuki. I don’t suppose you’re here for small-talk?”

I shoot her a flat glare. 

[Hikaru says to talk to her immediately about the bullets. She says our countermeasures are fine, but to practice common sense regarding standard urban combat. She seemed interested in knowing the specific details of the mission, so I indulged her. Once I was done, she reiterated her desire to talk to you. Whatever she’s hiding, lemme in on it after, okay?

Also, your handler showed up after I said goodbye. I told him you were looking for him, and he said he’d stay put for a bit. Sounded a bit impatient, so you might wanna hurry up.] 

I’d received Sayaka’s report moments earlier, prompting me to head over immediately. Based on her account of Hikaru’s attitude, I suspect that she’s already come up with the same thing I have.

Someone’s feeding them weapons.

“Sayaka’s briefed you on the situation.” I say matter-of-factly as I step inside. “And I’m sure you’ve come to the same conclusion.” 

So that’s why this mission had a seventh-star importance rating.

“And what conclusion is that?” Hikaru asks, looking amused.

“Someone’s feeding civilian gangs weapons designed to kill ninja.”

“That all?” Katsuo asks, looking distinctly unsurprised as he raises a cup of tea. 

Implying I should be able to figure out more? Alright, Katsuo, let’s dive into this, shall we?

An unknown supplier. Is that true? Is there any information I can use to narrow down this source? 

I’ve narrowed out civilians. They don’t have the ability to augment weaponry. It has to be someone who has access to qi. The enemy wielded rifles that have somehow managed to nearly silence the explosion caused by the ignition of the gunpowder that fired the bullets. On top of that, the associated sound of a bullet passing by — the sound barrier being broken — was absent.

Bullets haven’t been retrieved. None have been found.

Why?

No, forget why. What could cause these two phenomena? 

The first one is easily explainable. Subsonic ammunition wouldn’t produce the ‘crack’ of a sonic boom. The real question is how the hell bullets disappear without a trace.

It’s completely unreasonable to think that Mari couldn’t find a bullet for lack of trying. Either the bullets have outright disappeared, or…what’s being fired aren’t truly bullets at all. The only element that makes sense would be Earth…but the bullets wouldn’t naturally dissipate that quickly, and you’d need the User nearby to dissolve them faster. 

And the people using these weapons aren’t Users. 

Oh, hell. I’ve been thinking a ninja has been in charge of weapon distribution, but there’s another distinct possibility that is far more likely.

“A magus?” I whisper, stunned. “You think a magus might be the source of this weaponry?”

“Almost positive.” Hikaru says seriously. “There’s no ninja in the village who has the motive to do what is effectively weapon-testing, not in such a sporadic manner. If they wanted to test anti-ninja weapons, they would do it in missions. If they were malicious, they would have gone for direct assassinations on more important people. This is field-testing, Yuki.” 

“…I see.” I say. There isn’t really a good response to that. “Why was our team given this mission? Isn’t this really important? We’re a brand-new team!”

“Mari warned you about this.” Katsuo lectures. “How she’d be dragged into dangerous missions because of her aberration?”

No wonder so many of our missions have been abnormally challenging. 

The village considers Mari a special asset. I’ve forgotten this, having brushed aside Mari’s initial warning. That was an incredibly stupid idea. Haven’t I experienced the feeling of being out of my depth? In the First Mission, in the assassination mission? 

“Look…Because of my affinity and my skill level, I’m going to be thrown into more dangerous situations. That’s no place for fresh Academy graduates.”

For the first time, I feel these words keenly, and realize that I haven’t been taking her seriously. The missions haven’t been too hard yet, but—

With a burst of inspiration, I realize that the reason Katsuo’s forced me to take lead on all of our missions is because he’s been preparing me to handle all of this stuff on my own, just as I’m doing now. All of that work had just been...practice. 

Practice to lead missions that I’m not ready for. 

The reason he’s been so aloof with really teaching me…is because he wanted to see if I’d be able to adapt on the fly in real situations. 

…Guess I succeeded.

“Understood.” 

He observes my reaction before a small smirk finds its way onto his face. 

“It appears you have.”

“Stop stressing my apprentice out, you.” Hikaru says, smiling herself. “He’s got enough to worry about as is.” 

Her words snap me back to reality. Lack of proper responsibility aside, I’ve got to focus on what’s more urgent.

“Katsuo, I have some questions for you as well, regarding the upcoming mission. There’s many unknowns, as you might imagine, so we tried setting up countermeasures for as many things as we could anticipate…”

…

“Hmm…that’s a strategy that heavily relies on Sayaka, isn’t it? If there are snipers, you have to rely on her identifying and taking them out before they can take a shot. Of course, once you know that they’re there, it will be a lot simpler to take them down and avoid them, but…your communication system isn’t a bad idea, but the delay lag could cost you.”

“What would you do, in my situation?” I ask.

“I wouldn’t need to do anything. qi-enhancements or not, those bullets wouldn’t pierce me.” He muses. “But if I wasn’t? With the resources you have…”

“You should split this op up into two phases. Information-gathering, and assault. You’ve noticed you don’t have nearly enough information and that there’s too much risk, which I agree with. Right now, look to capture enemy personnel and equipment.”

“I can do the former, but the latter is a problem. According to Mari, their guns are booby-trapped with explosives and impossible to keep for long.”

He gives me a dry look. “If only there was a person that could disarm explosives—“

“Setsuna. Right. Stasis seal, huh?”

“Until she’s able to disarm whatever mechanism they use, yes.” 

“I see.” I say, musing. “The main problem will be capturing someone important enough to know something meaningful.”

“Correct.” He says. “You’ll want to move fast once you get the information, though. Otherwise they’ll invalidate it by changing locations.”

I nod. “There’s just one thing that confuses me, Katsuo…”

“Hm?” He looks utterly disinterested.

“You sure know a lot about this operation for someone who wasn’t here while Sayaka explained it to Hikaru. It took me less than two minutes to get here after Sayaka’s report. I see Hikaru made you tea, and it looked quite hot when I first saw you. In other words, she had just recently poured it, which would have taken even more time. If you weren’t there for Sayaka’s briefing, how were you able to dissect the details of the op so fast?”

He smiles. “I wasn’t there for Sayaka’s briefing, but I assure you that I haven’t been officially briefed on this operation at all. I merely okay’d Mari to lead a mission of this difficulty and importance.” 

I narrow my eyes. “Then you’ve been briefed by someone else, unofficially. Who? The only people would be…Setsuna or Mari, right?”

I’m certainly not suspicious of Katsuo, but I am quite curious to unravel the mystery that they’re dangling in front of me.

“I know for a fact that Setsuna hadn’t left the house prior to this, nor did we have any visitors. It wasn’t you. It could have been Mari, but…”

“Not her.” He says, almost gleefully.

I reconsider. 

The answer is obviously within my grasp, because otherwise I wouldn’t be given this test in the first place.

Gods above, sometimes I hate Katsuo.

If not Mari nor Setsuna…and for obvious reasons, not Sayaka or I…and he hasn’t been officially briefed…

But then it would have to be Hikaru, and I’ve already…

I…

“You two…are like Setsuna and I.” 

That’s right. Hikaru and Katsuo…they’re partners. Just like Setsuna and I, but their bond is deeper. They’ve had more time. 

“If this friend performs a tantric ritual with another ninja, she could draw from their qi. However, it would need to be modified — tantric rituals are designed to succeed with two Users, not one.” 

At the time, I hadn’t questioned her knowledge on tantric rituals. She’d been a researcher, someone who studied the depths of qi. Even esoteric knowledge like that wasn’t unreasonable for someone like her to possess, and that had been further reinforced when she demonstrated a pretty passable understanding of both qi and rituals. 

But now? Now, when I revisit that knowledge, coupled with my understanding of their bond…

“…Oh.” 

Their eyes glitter with amusement. 

“Just how deeply did you two…?”

They glance at each other for a moment. 

“Enough for telepathic communication.” Hikaru says, confirming my thoughts. “And more, but…you’ll see, when your time comes.”

Telepathic communication. It’s a concept I can scarcely imagine. There’s zero research on it here, and was only briefly mentioned in texts regarding tantric rituals. All I know is that they have something to do with the soul, but I don’t know what. 

I’m so very curious to learn more about it, but I hold off on asking. It isn’t strictly relevant to the mission. 

They’re bonded that closely, but…they aren’t in a relationship, are they?

“Do you have any other questions regarding your mission, Yuki?” Hikaru asks kindly. 

I do, thankfully.

“The anti-healing factor of the bullets. What’s up with that?” I ask. 

Katsuo smirks. “Consider your enemy.”

“…Fuck.” I mutter. “So something like an anti-healing enchantment…? How does that even work…?” 

Katsuo shakes his head. “I’m not sure myself. I suggest reading up a bit on Arcacian magic. You might need the knowledge, on the off chance you fight our magus.”

I grimace. “I don’t suppose you know any resources?”

Hikaru shakes her head. “I’ve never had a reason to look into it, and neither has—“ She cuts herself abruptly. “Never mind. Hm…Yuki, have you visited the Central Ninja Library yet?”

“No, but I know where it is.” 

“Good. Check the Arcacian section, specifically the section regarding magic. It isn’t especially detailed, but there is a short primer written by Chloe White regarding the fundamental differences between magic and qi.” 

“Hmm…alright.”

…

“First of all, the concept of magic is flawed. There is no such thing as true ‘magic’, miracle-making, despite what magi are taught from a young age. At its core, magic is the usage of a magical foci to manipulate ambient energy. In comparison, ninja focus on internal energy. The primary word for external energy is ‘mana’, while internal energy is ‘qi’. Magi and ninja are specifically trained to use mana and qi, respectively, and that is the main difference between their skills.”

I bite my lip, staring down at my copy of  Magus and Ninja . It isn’t impossible to use external energy, mana, as a ninja — that’s what Territory Creation is, at its core, the subjugation of mana — but that takes an incredible amount of practice. 

As for ninja, internal energy — qi — is exactly how we accomplish our ninja arts. So magi are the inverse — they focus on external energy, and perhaps can learn how to use internal energy. 

“Magi are incredibly reliant on their wands and other casting tools, which are composed of magical foci (mana-infused crystals). If you disarm them of such, only skilled magi will be able to cast any spell at all, although internal arts like reinforcement will be unhindered. Incidentally, qi suppressants, which block the expression of qi rather than qi manipulation itself, do work on magi for a reason we have yet to ascertain.” 

Hm. 

It seems that if I break a magus’s wand, they’ll be on average about as helpless as I was while suppressed in the interrogation exercise. That makes doing so a priority against an enemy magus. 

There’s a lot more information here, but as interesting as it is, doesn’t seem especially rele—

“Runic enchantments are the magic analogue to seals.”

Alright, Chloe White. You have my attention. It’s your speciality, after all.

“As versatile as seals are, they pale in comparison to the sheer utility of runes. Runes can be used to mimic nearly every form of magic, whereas seals are only useful for sealing, barriers (a subset of sealing), and rituals (arguably a modified version of sealing). Of course, runes are incredibly more taxing in regards to energy, just as challenging to learn, and also tend to explode violently when done incorrectly. Additionally, mastering runes requires a solid proficiency in both qi and mana. As a result of these qualifications and risks, very few people learn to harness the power of runes properly. Throughout known magical history, there have been less than fifty [redacted].” 

I take that to mean that there have been less than fifty experts of runes. Or, more likely, practical experts of runes — battle-magi, runic warriors…the possibilities are endless, but ultimately meaningless right now. 

Setsuna could one day learn to harness these runes. Now that would be quite interesting. Checking out the book, I return home, only to find a certain person waiting outside for me.

“Hey, Mari.” I glance up, realizing that we’re bordering on dusk. 

Apparently I had spent more time reading than I’d thought.

“Hey, captain.”

“Why’re you outside my house?” I shake my head. “Sorry, stupid question, you were obviously waiting for me. Why?”

She scratches her head awkwardly. “Well, I’d just wanted to thank you.”

I blink. “Thank me? For what?”

“For everything you’ve done.” Mari says, a fond smile on her face. “But, most importantly…Katsuo told me about what you did for me.”

“Huh?”

“Remember, the first time we visited Rose Garden? Where we both got shot?”

“Of course I do.”

“You were shot through the heart, weren’t you?”

“I…was, yes.”

“Why wasn’t I?”

“Why…weren’t you shot through the—“

Oh! I understand now. If they had the element of surprise, why weren’t both shots fatal? I survived because of my regeneration, but it’s like they weren’t even attempting to kill her.

“Yuki, when you got shot, your aura fluctuated. That training technique you do.”

“Ah…Heavy Wind.”

I’ve grown extremely accustomed to using that technique on and off at will. Maintaining it consistently has done wonders for both my physical abilities and my qi control, after all.

“…The technique broke after I was shot, so…ah, I see. It diverted the path of the bullet. That was completely unintentional, though.”

Mari shrugs. “For all I know, though, you saved my life. Thank you.”

I blink. “Sure, I guess?”

The brunette laughs. “Never change, Yuki. Never change.”

She steps forward, clearly intent on hugging me, and I go ahead and let her. It’s comfortable, I suppose, although there’s a sense of lingering electricity about her that is mildly discomfiting, and something else that seems a bit more interesting. 

Whatever it is, though, I’m not able to find out. Mari suddenly lets go, looking embarrassed. “S-Sorry about that. I’m still working on suppressing my aura.” 

“Have you ever shocked someone before?” I ask curiously, both professionally interested in the response and personally interested in teasing her about it. It’s rare that something legitimately perturbs Mari, after all.

“I—“ Her aura swells as she flushes. “You…ugh! Good night!” 

She storms off to her house, looking genuinely flustered.

“Good night!” I reply cheerfully, now in a much brighter mood.

Sleep comes easily that night.


	70. (3.7.3) Bloom, Part 3

#  **3.7.3 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Bloom, Part 3**

“Is everyone ready?” I ask quietly. We’re grouped about ten minutes away from the sector. Setsuna has already departed over an hour in advance, having begun her careful, quiet observation and infiltration. 

That just leaves us to be the big fat distraction. 

“Ready.” Sayaka says softly, an uncharacteristically serious look upon her face.

“Ready.” Mari chirps cheerfully, looking utterly unbothered by the gravity of the situation.

I nod to Sayaka, and she takes off into the air.

“And then there were two.” Mari mutters. “Shall we?” 

“Mm.” 

We start casually walking towards the sector. 

“So, captain…”

“What?”

“You and Sayaka click surprisingly well.”

I glance at the Storm User out of the corner of my eye. “I suppose so.”

“Not a bad fit for each other, you know?”

I sigh exasperatedly. “What is with you and your interest in getting me into a relationship?”

Mari shrugs. “I don’t really think your relationship would work out, but it’d make Setsuna jealous enough to properly pursue you. When your relationship eventually ends in a fiery explosion, Setsuna will be there to pick up the pieces of your broken heart, and over time, true love will develop between you two.”

She scratches her head. “That, or your natural competitive spirit will lead each other into increasingly ridiculous challenges that will inevitably drag the two of you into a fiery, passionate marriage. Fifty years from now, you two will still be around, constantly trying to one-up the other.” 

“Or we’ll murder each other.” I retort. It doesn’t escape my attention that she’s evaded the original question.

“Or you’ll murder each other.” Mari agrees easily.

“I love Sayaka.” I say truthfully. “Just not in that way.”

I’ve spent a lot of time with the blunette, both intimate and not. She’s driven me to new heights as a ninja, forcing me to constantly work to stay ahead of her.

But more than that, she’s simply just very fun to be around. It’s fun to banter with her, to mess around with her, to spar with her.

As I’ve said, I love Sayaka. But only platonically. An interesting, intriguing person she may be, but she isn’t the one I _romantically_ love. 

…Or so I believe. The literature I’ve read about the topic are less clear than I’d wish them to be.

“How sure are you?” She asks, knowingly.

“…I don’t know.”

Mari shrugs. “Isn’t it only fair to all of you for you to find out?”

“…What?”

“I think you could learn a lot from having a relationship with Sayaka.” The Storm User says bluntly. “She drags you out of that shell of yours.”

“I suppose so.” I say noncommittally. 

I’d have to court her even if I was interested in her...and frankly, I don’t know how to do that.

She sighs, but doesn’t say anything else on the topic as we both focus on the mission.

Qi floods through my body, reinforcing me inside and out. Across from me, sparks ripple across Mari’s skin, her aura abruptly expanding outwards in every direction. 

“What’s this?” I ask, wincing as I get lightly shocked by the aura. 

“Awareness field.” 

“Enough to stop a bullet?” I ask, incredulously. “Your field only covers a few meters. Any bullet would cross it in, like…a hundredth of a second.” 

Mari smirks. “Yes. I’m about to fully activate the field, so you’re going to want to step far away from it.”

I immediately cross to the other side of the road as the smell of burning ozone increases exponentially. With a shower of sparks, Mari’s field asserts itself, random forks of lightning lancing through the air.

“I don’t really want to be on the road with you anymore.” I say dryly. The qi she’s giving off is like a beacon to my sensory abilities. 

“Where’ll you go, then?” She asks, eyes bright with amusement. 

“Up.” I respond shortly, pooling together my qi and floating into the air.

“I thought you didn’t have battle-ready flight?” Mari asks, confused. “You’d be a Wind Master if you were, wouldn’t you?” 

“Yep. I don’t. I cheat.” 

Mari starts running forward at a pace I easily keep up with, forming little bubbles of air underneath my feet.

“I see. You’ve used that strategy before. Stole it off of me, didn’t you?” 

“Mine’s better.” I say dryly, and it is, simply because I have more refined control.

“But Sayaka’s is the best.” She teases, making me roll my eyes. 

“That hers is.”

We get to the Rose Garden Park without any trouble at all. The sector has certainly changed — very few people walk around, and those that do seem to be rather scared, looking around constantly with a level of paranoia unusual for civilians. No one appears to be one of the targets we hunt, but then again, Mari’s aura has alerted everyone in a hundred meter vicinity as to our presence. I’m sure they’re hiding and grouping, waiting to take us down. Now all that’s left to do?

**Bait.**

Mari’s aura abruptly simmers down, fading away to nearly nothing as she collapses on the ground.

“What on earth are you doing?” I ask, after remotely probing her with a pulse of qi to make sure she’s fine. 

“Pretending that I’m too tired to defend myself.” Mari mutters from the ground, staring blankly at the sky. “Think it’ll work?”

I shrug, taking a spot next to her. “Guess we’ll see.” 

It takes two hours of nothing before the communication scroll pops into my holster. 

“Surrounded. Combat imminent.”

Silently, I send the scroll back.

“I suggest giving me some space, Yuki.” Mari advises. 

Without hesitation, I leap away from her, calling my Wind to me— 

A dozen shots go off in rapid succession, mostly aimed at Mari. None of them get close, though — with a loud _crack_ , tiny bolts of lightning ripple off of Mari and deflect the bullets. 

_She hasn’t even moved_.

The few bullets aimed at me miss entirely as I propel myself away with Wind, the currents taking me up into the air—

Just in time to see the first of the rocks fall to earth, a half-dozen alarmed shouts echoing through the air. 

_Too easy._

Homing in on them as Mari draws their attention, I slip down and through the streets as fast as I can manage without completely blowing my stealth, quickly coming upon one of the snipers. There’s two people — both mundane — although only one is capable of combat, the other — the sniper — nursing a crushed arm. 

Narrowing my eyes, one of my blades is unsealed and thrown in a single smooth motion. In a display of impressive skill for a civilian, the wounded man hurls his rifle at the blade. Enchanted or not, the rifle doesn’t stop the wind-enhanced masterwork, not even close, but nevertheless manages to deflect it enough so that he only takes a light slash to the side.

My real target, however, is his partner, and my Wind-empowered fist crushes into his stomach, dealing enough of a shock to his system to immediately knock him unconscious.

Half a second later, the second half of my pair of swords rests at the man’s throat.

“Do I need to start cutting things, or are you going to talk?”

“W-What the—“ 

I shake my head. “Cutting things it is.” My blade flashes decisively through the air, eliciting a howl from the man as half of his ear falls to the ground. 

“Talk. **Now.** ”

“W-What do you want!?” He whimpers.

“I want you to tell me where I can find your boss.”

“My boss? I…I don’t…”

The following interrogation is quick but utterly disappointing. It turns out that he’s legitimately, actually clueless — which makes _no sense at all._

_What the hell’s going on here?_

The man doesn’t remember anything useful at all, with the sole exception of his orders.

Irritated, I knock the man unconscious and heal his arm, but cut his trigger fingers off.

…

His partner doesn’t know anything either. Nor do the four other men I catch and interrogate. And, of course, there’s no traces of any rifles or bullets. 

_This reeks of some kind of mind manipulation. No qi technique I know of could do something like this. It’s either an aberration, something totally unknown to me, or…_ magic.

The weight of the communication scroll pulls me from my thoughts.

[Tracked a potential base by following one of the survivors.]

My eyes widen. Perhaps my torture failed because their orders were implanted subconsciously? They wouldn’t have been able to recall it consciously to respond to my torture, but their bodies still might know where to go.

[Where?]

[220.320. Wooden one-storied house, black roof.]

[Thanks.]

I orient myself in the direction she pointed me in and head out, picking up a mildly winded but utterly uninjured Mari.

…

“No one’s home.” I mutter. 

Together, Mari and I had searched the house, only to find absolutely nothing.

[Anything?]

[No. Come down here.]

A few moments later, Sayaka joins us in the house, looking a bit tired as well. She must be, to have been holding herself up in the air all this time. 

“…Something feels off.” The blunette murmurs, after doing a lap around the house. 

“What?”

“Shh.”

The Wind Mistress sits on the ground, taking a cross-legged stance. Moments later, I feel her aura expand, her power flooding through the room.

“…There.” 

She points at a random, blank spot on the floor.

“What is it?”

“A secret panel?” Mari guesses. 

“Yes. The air feels…strange around there. Nothing so obvious as a wind current…more like someone’s messing with the air, trying to _hide_ their presence…”

“…Mage.” I mutter. 

“Orders, captain?” The Storm User asks quietly, but seriously. 

“They almost certainly know we’re here.” I say softly. “If we retreat…they’re going to get away.” 

“Then let’s stop them.” Mari says intently.

“We don’t know how strong they are.” Sayaka warns. “It would be dangerous to keep on going.” 

I stare at the blunette’s hands.

[Possibility of eavesdropping exists. Use hand signs to contact.]

“We’ve repelled them from the area, captain.” Mari says, her eyes hard. “We should regroup for now.”

[Prepare an ambush?]

[We don’t know their sensory capabilities. I’d suggest a decisive surprise attack, instead.]

[But how? And where?]

Watching their conversation, I murmur: “I suppose so…”

[Use a qi blast to destroy traps.]

[I’ll use a super-weak Volt Line.]

[Your punch attack? What’ll that do?]

[Go, Mari.] I interject.

[On three.]

…

The crushing attack rattles the house and tears apart the floor, sending a surge of Storm rippling down the walls of the newly revealed secret shaft. It doesn’t seem like any magical traps have been triggered, even as the qi fizzles out, so I leap in, the two girls following me moments later.

It isn’t long — perhaps five meters or so — and soon enough, I find myself in a basement. It wouldn’t be unusual if not for the fact that the whole thing is so deep underground. 

_Clearly, someone’s been at work._

It’s a small room, about the size of my house. All in all, certainly not as arcane as I’d expect.

And, in the middle of the room—

“Geez, guys. You almost hurt me with that.” 

The blue barrier fades away, revealing an uninjured Setsuna. She looks exhausted, but thankfully uninjured.

“Setsuna? What are you — where did the man we chased go?”

“Dead.” She says grimly. “I wasn’t able to stop the mage from teleporting away.” 

“They can teleport?” Mari asks sharply. 

“Yes, and take people with them. Or corpses. Not sure if he lived long enough to be counted as alive.”

“That’ll make it almost impossible to take them alive, then.” I mutter. “Updating our mission parameters…aim to kill.”

“Yes. We’ll have to find a new lead, too — I tracked the guy to the same place you did, in the end. I tried to assassinate him, but…” 

“He warped away.” I finish. 

“Yeah. I managed to cut him, but it wasn’t enough.”

I flash her a small smile before glancing at Sayaka, who seems lost in thought. 

“That far wall...” 

_Something feels a little off. How did Setsuna get past the wall...?_

She bumps against me affectionately before slipping past me entirely.

“Setsuna?”

“What’s up?” She asks, glancing towards me with a perplexed expression.

“How’d you get in?”

“Seals.” She replies simply. “Or, more specifically, triggering an overload feedback loop through an infinite input. It wasn’t hard when I could sense the mechanics of their spell.”

“Huh. Fair.” 

Now that sounds more like the Setsuna I know, complete with a casual explanation of concepts that go over my head. It sounds like she broke the spell by inverting it upon itself somehow, although I can’t imagine—

“Something wrong with the wall?” Mari asks, watching Sayaka as she heads towards the wall.

“I’m getting...a strange feeling from it...”

I blink. “Just like—“

 **_Shlick_ **.

I pause, then stare downwards at the sharp, cold pain through my chest—

—at one of Katsuo’s masterwork blades being shoved right through it.

“S-Setsuna...what—?” Mari grimaces as the seal Setsuna’s qi-printed onto her takes full effect, debilitating the brunette’s ability to use qi.

_I’m a fool._

_What’s our mysterious mage’s speciality?_

_Mind manipulation._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh.


	71. (3.7.4) Bloom, Part 4

#  **3.7.4 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Bloom, Part 4**

Mari’s disabled. I’m injured. Setsuna’s being controlled by the enemy. 

My senses detect a pulse of qi traveling through the blade embedded in me. Realizing what Setsuna is capable of, I counter with a pulse of my own qi, negating her technique, before I grab the blade in both hands and force it out _directly through me._

Snarling angrily, I spin and call Wind to my fist as I lash out at my bewitched partner. She dodges with incredible speed, eyes glowing an unnatural crimson, before aiming to incapacitate Mari with a thrust of a kunai. It’s then I realize that our enemy mage’s technique is flawed, at least to some degree — had he been fully subjugating and plundering her mind, he would have known Mari is far from helpless, qi or not. 

It doesn’t come as a surprise, then, when Mari catches Setsuna’s wrist and _crushes_ it with nothing more than brutal force before slamming a fist into her stomach.

The hit is sufficient to force blood out of her mouth, but she doesn’t seem to notice, simply pulsing a burst of blindingly bright blue qi into her palm that makes us wince, shielding or reinforcing our eyes. In the next moment, Mari is smashed into the wall by a qi-laced punch. 

On the other side of the room, Sayaka’s _Turbulent Air_ engages, but before she can do anything, the barrier that Setsuna had used to protect herself before activates, cutting her off. 

Having taken the opportunity to lightly heal my debilitating injury, I lunge at Puppet-Setsuna from behind. As if knowing exactly where I am, she ducks and whirl, trying to catch me with a spinning kick. Catching the heavy blow with my free hand, I reinforce my body before bodily picking her up and hurling her into the far wall.

“Snap out of it, Setsuna!” I shout as I move to put myself between her and my vulnerable teammate. 

“Y-You wouldn’t hurt me, would you, Yuki?” My hypnotized teammate whimpers in a voice that is painfully raw. “You…you said that you would protect me, that you’d support me no matter what. Were you just—“ 

“ **Shut the fuck up!** ” I snarl, clenching my fists. “Don’t you **dare** use her words like that, mage!” 

Setsuna shifts from a vulnerable, timid posture to something more battle-ready.

“Eh. I tried.” She, no, her _possessor_ says, something like cruelty in those glowing eyes. With a smirk that can only be described as malicious, a standard steel blade materializes in her hands. 

“Time for you to choose who to kill, Mister Yuki.”

Behind me, Sayaka rages against the walls of her barrier, which have somehow managed to encase her completely. Despite her substantial power, though, she can’t even leave a dent.

Well, there’s nothing I can do for her for now. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, but I’ll just have to occupy our magus so that he doesn’t hurt her.

The real problem is Mari, who, while not completely helpless, is dramatically reduced in strength without ready access to her qi. Setsuna is more than a match for Mari when she’s like that, but now she’s being empowered by an opponent with unknown capabilities. She’s already demonstrated a complete lack of real reaction to pain, as well as the ability to move bizarrely fast at times.

Protecting her while trying to somehow subdue an empowered Setsuna, who seems hellbent on finishing what she’s started…

_I can’t do this. Not as I am. This would be a challenge even if I were at my very best, but needing to constantly juggle that moral dilemma, never mind my concern for Setsuna, my hatred and anger over seeing her used that way…_

_If my emotions are getting in the way…then I’ve got no choice._

“Mari, Sayaka…first chance you get, leave. That’s an order.”

“…Understood, captain.”

It’s not the first time I’ve given her a distasteful order, so I know Mari will accept. 

“If this fucker lets me get out, sure!” 

“Haha…” Puppet-Setsuna giggles, an eerie sound that sounds completely unnatural. “Get out? You think you’ll be getting out? That barrier has absorbed all of the Wind you’ve thrown at it. And, well…you’ve made it angry.”

Sayaka’s eyes widen as the barrier walls glow a blinding white before a crushing burst of air ripples out inward. With a shout of exertion, she manages to pulse a massive blast of Wind through her _Turbulent Air_ , but it’s not enough—

The blunette screams in agony as the shockwave passes through her body, forcing her to one knee. Blood drips from a dozen lacerations before she collapses entirely, unconscious.

“One down…” Puppet-Setsuna says cheerfully. 

Raw fury bubbles through my body before I force it down. It isn’t useful. Eliciting anger is exactly what they want from me. Instinctively, my mind calls to the Veil. The icy cold is precisely what I need right now, dousing the fire burning within me. 

Sort of.

_More. I need more._

I tap deeper into the Veil than I ever have before. Cold, pure _clarity_ floods into me. 

“Well, that was interesting and all, but…I’ve got better things to do with my time. So…”

**Frozen Garden.**

_Huh?_

“Time to die!” 

**Frozen Garden.**

Acting purely on instinct, I stomp my foot and release a pulse of pure Ice throughout the room, a wave of frost rippling over the surfaces of the room and freezing them solid.

A moment later, Puppet-Setsuna’s qi pulses outward, attempting to trigger a dozen explosive tags that have been planted throughout the room. Her qi, denied from reaching the explosive tags thanks to the interference of my own, mostly peters out uselessly. The explosive tags she does manage to trigger are blocked by Ice walls, containing the force behind them.

“Wha—“ 

I lunge forward, an Ice sword materializing in my hand. She prepares to stop me, but a spike of Ice pierces through her foot and pins her long enough for me to run the blade right through her heart. 

“Y-You…clever bastard.” 

_That’s right. Setsuna isn’t aware of my full capabilities with the element. No mind-reader could have changed that._

With an exertion of will, I keep pushing, slamming the blade deep into the far wall and pinning her to it. My Ice reacts to my will, binding her arms and legs. 

“Y-Yuki…what…?” Mari whispers from behind me.

I ignore her, grabbing Puppet-Setsuna by the throat, forcing her to look at me. Blood steadily drips onto my forearm. 

“Hhh…good…going…you’ve killed her, ahahaha…”

Ignoring the taunting words, I press a hand over her heart and take control of my aura, smashing it into her own. It’s an act of complete _dominance_ , and under normal circumstances, would probably cause Setsuna to collapse. The gap between our raw power is too large.

In this case, however, it rocks her body back as her eyes abruptly return to normal, signifying the ending of the possession. Whatever his technique is, it requires his magic to be within her to control her, and I’ve basically just seized control of her qi and forced my own into her. 

“…Y-Yuki…” Her eyes flit from me, to Sayaka, to Mari. I can feel her qi weakly pulse for a moment. 

I let my tight grip on my Veil go, melting all the Ice surrounding us as I do so. With nothing pinning the sealer, she collapses — but I’m there to catch her. 

“Easy there.” I whisper, a pang of something in my chest. 

She’s already fallen unconscious, however. I begin scanning her, trying to assess the damage dealt to her even as I begin preliminary first aid. 

“Yuki…what the hell was that?” Mari whispers from behind me.

I don’t bother glancing at her. “I’m an Ice aberrant. Kill me if you want, but wait until I fix Setsuna up first, otherwise she’s going to die. In the meantime, please administer first aid to Sayaka.”

“I-I…understood, captain.” To my relief, Mari does as I say, sounding a little shaken. Whatever the reason, she allows me to tend to Setsuna. 

The damage is severe enough to require me to use life energy to heal Setsuna. I hadn’t expected anything less, given that I’d stabbed her through the heart. 

_I’m glad she’s fallen unconscious, though. I can brush off this level of healing as a part of my Aberration to the others, but if she was conscious, Setsuna would be able to tell I was using Etheria._

Reaching deeply into myself, _of_ myself, I pull power directly from my soul, letting it flow down my arms. It takes far more than I feel comfortable with, but I won’t stop. Not when it’s for Setsuna. With a sigh of relief, I watch as her wounds start knitting themselves together, helping along the process with a steady flow of healing qi. 

_I’m so sorry, Setsuna. I didn’t want to hurt you. But…this was the only way I could think of to purge his influence from you. Forgive me, please._

Once she’s fully healed, I pick her up and carry her over to where Mari is kneeling over Sayaka, assessing her injuries. 

“How bad is it?” 

“…On the outside, it isn’t too bad, not as bad as I thought. I’m worried about her insides, though…”

_So am I._

Mari looks surprisingly unguarded around me despite my Ice aberration. I’d expected fear, shock, wariness…but she doesn’t…seem to particularly care in the slightest?

_Why?_

I scan over Sayaka’s body, probing her body with my qi.

_Fuck._

Her internal organs are shot to all hell. That pressurized wave ruptured her left lung, spleen, pancreas, and liver. Had she not defended against it, it would have definitely killed her — as it is, she’s just barely clinging to life. 

But she’s alive, and that’s enough for…wait—

…She’s healing herself?

“…H-H-Hey…” The blunette says weakly, meeting my concerned gaze. 

“You haven’t been conscious this whole time, have you?” I ask in disbelief.

“Y-You…ugh…bet I have. In case…not fun, though…” 

I shake my head ruefully. “Alright, let’s get you patched up. I’ll handle the external.” 

It’s possible for two people to work together to heal someone, but usually not at the exact same area. Qi interference makes that dangerous.

With a nod of acknowledgement, her eyes flutter closed as she focuses on her healing.

_If her wounds are still this bad after she’s been healing them, I can’t imagine what they must have been like before._

Ah, shit. If she’s been awake this whole time, she’s also seen my Ice usage. Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now.

It takes a few minutes even with the two of us, but together we eventually heal her up. Sayaka’s quite the formidable healer, to say nothing of my own capabilities. Trauma healing like this is easily handled, even in the field. 

“…Setsuna’s barriers aren’t _that_ strong, right?” The blunette mutters as she stands with my help, still sounding exhausted. “I was throwing everything I had at them, trying to force my way out, but…”

“No, they’re not.” Mari confirms. “It must have been some kind of magic.”

“This mission is officially beyond our pay grade.” I say. I don’t want to let the magus go, but…there’s simply no choice. We’re all too weakened to pursue them, especially given that we still only have the barest hint of their capabilities. “We need to talk to Setsuna…and get someone more suited for this. Multiple someones.” 

Mari sighs heavily. “I agree. Let’s get out of here, then.”

Sayaka spins suddenly, her _Turbulent Air_ flowing to life. I tense up, anticipating needing to deal with a possessed Sayaka, but she instead fires a powerful blast of Wind that tears right through the far wall—

_No, not the wall! It went right through!_

The illusion breaks, a section in the wall abruptly fading away. And there, in a long corridor — _the sewers, they lead to the sewers_ — is our mysterious mage, cloaked in a long black cloth and holding a thin stick that I assume to be their wand. 

No matter how much I focus, though, I can’t get a good grasp on any of their features. 

_Magic!_

The remnants of a shimmering blue barrier fade away.

“Careful. No Wind techniques.” I warn Sayaka, who nods in understanding.

_I think I understand now, the nature of that barrier. Sayaka’s too powerful to block that easily…unless, of course, you could use something like magic to make an element-specific shield. Then I imagine the power requirements would be less. Combine that with something to prevent Sayaka from simply walking out, and…that’s how you could confine a Wind User._

“You kids are quite annoying.” The mage says in a masculine voice. “I was planning on letting you leave, but now, I’m pretty irritated.” 

The putrid smell of sewer gas leaks into the air. I ignore it with pure focus — the mage, on the other hand, seems to have some sort of air field around their head to filter out the smell.

My eyes narrow as the beginnings of a plan come to my mind. Moving closer to Sayaka, I scratch a quick series of instructions into the small of her back, out of view of the magus.

“Yeah? And what’ll you do about it?” I taunt. His response comes in a language I don’t recognize:

“ _Mitsuse!_ ”

A swirling ball of wind is launched directly at us. Sayaka steps in front of it, _Turbulent Air_ active and qi flaring. 

_“Aeroblast!”_

A powerful, continuous force of wind ripples out, crushing the oncoming attack before moving on to threaten the mage directly. Scoffing, he reasserts his Wind barrier.

A spike of Ice, stealthily slipped into Sayaka’s attack halfway through and carried along by the wind, impales the mage through the chest a moment later.

“Guh!” 

Sayaka hurls a scroll into the dissipating winds a moment later, releasing a burst of fire.

_Boom._

I raise a shield of ice in front of us as the sewer gases ignite, the resulting explosion only enhanced by the lingering Wind. A scream erupts from the mage’s throat as he’s burned alive. 

Mari, Storm Cloak active — _somehow_ — leaps into the flames. 

The distinct sound of someone getting repeatedly punched follows. 

Eventually, Mari reappears, a limp body over her shoulder, a violent grin on her face, and blood dripping from her hands. I can’t make out the man’s features, but seeing him helpless, remembering what he did to Setsuna, to Sayaka...

Quietly, I begin aspect shifting, my lips thinning into a flat line.

“Bring him here.”

“Sure, but—“

Mari lays him on the ground in front of me as my affinity shift completes— 

Under my hand, the mage’s head is blown off with a blast of compressed Wind. 

“Yuki?! What the fu—“ Mari begins, but I cut her off abruptly:

“My aberration. If he says anything, I die. We tried to capture him alive, but he proved stronger than expected and we weren’t able to do it.”

“I—“

“Mari, how are you able to use your qi right now?” Sayaka forcefully interrupts, sounding surprised. “Didn’t Setsuna seal you back when she was hypnotized?”

“She...she unsealed me in the few seconds she was awake. I didn’t want to say anything in case the mage…well, it obviously doesn’t matter now, but…”

“Ah.”

Carefully, I make my way over to where Setsuna is still sleeping on the ground, picking her up gently and brushing her hair out of her face.

“Sayaka, seal the body. Let’s get out of here.” 

Wordlessly, the blunette does as I say, and we leave the mess behind.

…

Setsuna stirs in my arms a minute, slowly coming to consciousness. It’s extremely concerning, considering her typical level of control — she’s long since dropped the poor waking habits of her childhood. 

_…She’s too weak to maintain that level of control over herself, in other words._

“How are you feeling?” I ask. 

She shakes her head, apparently unable to or unwilling to reply. My worry deepens, but I can’t say anything further, as consumed as I am with my own thoughts.

Mari and Sayaka _know_. They know my secret. They haven’t said anything about it yet, but I’m sure that will change. Once we get out of this, to safety. 

_…I have absolutely no idea what I’ll say to them. I don’t even know how they’ll react._

“Wait.” Setsuna says, squirming slightly. Realizing what she wants, I let her go, and she jumps to her feet. 

“Down there…we have to cover our tracks.”

I don’t miss the way my teammates glance at me.

“Right.” I say heavily. “Do it.”

Setsuna slips back into the nondescript house, leaving me alone with my two teammates.

“Yuki—“ The Storm User begins. 

“If it’s about what you saw, not here. Later.” I cut her off.

“Thank you. Again.”

“What?” 

The brunette scratches at her head awkwardly. “You saved all of our lives again. It doesn’t matter how. You did.” 

I shrug. “I wasn’t going to let you all die.” 

Whatever Mari says next is cut off by a massive explosion from underground, Setsuna rolling out the door as the house erupts into flames.

“Done. Let’s get out of here.” She says, still looking a little unsteady, but much improved.

…

With Setsuna sleeping off the effects of being hypnotized — she’s willingly qi-suppressed herself to ensure that any sort of relapse will be easier to handle — and Mari closing out the mission with the higher-ups, I’m left alone with Sayaka. 

The blunette has been in a contemplative mood ever since she learned about my Ice aberration. Granted, a lot of other things happened at the same time, so perhaps that’s unfair. 

She joined us for our first mission. She encountered a mage. She suffered what was perhaps the most one-sided defeat in her entire life. She saw me ruthlessly stab Setsuna right through the heart to end her possession. She watched me kill someone who had been completely defenseless.

I have no idea what she’s feeling right now. Whatever it is, she’s clearly deeply lost in thought. Frustrated, I stand up from where I’m sitting on the couch, pacing across the room. My thoughts aren’t a pleasant place to be right now.

_I’ve always thought that revealing my Ice aberration would mean death._

Sure, I’ve been working to change that. Working with Hikaru, planning to eventually reveal my aberration, being powerful enough to be _useful_ instead of dangerous…but not yet. I’m definitely not ready yet. Having to blow my secret open early?

I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to die, not yet. I still have so much I want to do, so much I want to find out. I’m not ready for it yet. 

But there might not be any choice. If Mari says anything — hell, even if she simply can’t come up with a good cover — I’ll die. If Sayaka says anything? I’ll die. If Setsuna didn’t remove all traces of my presence, or if they can sense the lingering traces of my qi—

I’ll die.

_Is it time to activate those contingency pla—_

“Yuki?” Sayaka asks, clear blue eyes meeting my own. “Are you okay?” 

I chuckle bitterly. “Anything but.” 

She flashes me a soft, sympathetic smile, standing up to approach me. I tense up, causing her to freeze. 

“…Yuki?”

“Why haven’t you asked or said anything?” 

“What?”

I level a flat stare at her. “About my aberration.” 

She shrugs. The sheer irreverence of the act makes my jaw drop.

“So you have a fancy trick under your belt. And?” 

“Sayaka!” I snap. “You _know_ that isn’t how this works!”

“I know.” The blunette murmurs. “I _know_ , Yuki, I was paying attention in class just as much as you were. And it’s because I know that I’m not scared of you.”

“My aberration—“

“I _know_ , Yuki!” Sayaka chastises me, voice lowered. “Stop being stupid! What do you think I’ve been so quiet for? I’m not dumb! I know already, how your aberration supposedly turns you into an unfeeling psychopath, and I know how aberrations warp the person. You think I haven’t noticed with Mari, already? She purposefully suppresses her wild nature as much as she can to seem as normal as possible, but it’s impossible to ignore her trying to do things like hold off an entire contingent of thugs wielding ninja-killing weapons, or jumping directly into fire, or the rumors I’ve heard of her diving into a fucking hurricane-type technique during her fifth-star examination. I _already know!”_

“But despite her pride, her wild nature, her recklessness, she _still_ tries her best to suppress it. There’s a reason she calls you captain! There’s a reason she follows you even when she disagrees with you! She knows about the weaknesses her aberration brings to her! It’s in her nature, and she can’t easily change it, but she _tries_ ! She forces herself to listen to you because she _trusts you to lead her!_ Your defects _don’t define you!_ So stop being stupid, Yuki! Neither of us are going to abandon you for something as dumb as this!” 

I rear back at her words. Her voice is trembling with passion, a rare break from the cool and collected Sayaka I’m accustomed to handling. 

_Has Mari…really been doing that? I hadn’t noticed…but it makes sense, doesn’t it? I’d noted her nature early on, but…I guess I’d attributed her change to simply getting used to us._

_…But if that was the case, then why would she have grown_ **_less_ ** _wild and prideful, rather than more?_

 _Sayaka’s right. She_ **_has_ ** _been suppressing her true nature._

“And you, Yuki! You—“ She marches forward until she’s close enough to dig one hand into the collar of my shirt, forcing me to stare into her blazing blue eyes. “You idiot. I’m not going to betray you! We’re rivals! Friends! I’d put my life on the line for you — that’s what I’ve agreed to _do_ , running missions with you and Mari and Setsuna! So why? Why wouldn’t you think I’d keep your stupid secret?!” 

“I—“

But I don’t have anything to say to that. As hard as it is for me to understand, to comprehend — her logic isn’t wrong, if I can trust that she truly feels the way she claims she does.

…But it’s obvious that she does. She wouldn’t have lost her composure otherwise. Sayaka never has.

The only thing I could possibly say in this situation…

“I’m sorry, Sayaka.”

Her eyes soften as she steps back, visibly recomposing herself.

“No…you didn’t deserve that.” She pauses. “Okay, well, you did deserve that, but I’m still sorry for yelling at you.”

I sigh. “I may have needed it.” 

She nods. “That you did. Now sit over here.” 

Still a little shocked, I do as she says. 

“You’re so tense. Relax, Yuki. I won’t hurt you.” She tugs on my shoulder until I get the idea and lie down on her lap, letting her run her fingers through my hair soothingly. “I won’t hurt you.” She murmurs again.

And so we sit there until Mari and Setsuna make their way out, sit there until our group is all there. The sealer is first, moving to claim the spot to the other side of me. Without a word passing between us, her hands join Sayaka’s, gentle caresses and soft touches.

It helps. The tension slowly drains from my body, lulled into a relaxed state by the warmth of their auras. Whatever issue Setsuna has with Sayaka is put aside. Eventually, Mari wanders in as well, immediately flashing me a soft smile. 

_Sayaka was right. Damn it. I’m so blind. Just what else have I missed?_

The Storm User takes a seat next to Setsuna, a gentle look in her eyes. 

And together we sit there, our little family of four. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was fun to write. And next chapter?
> 
> ...You'll see.


	72. (3.7.5) Bloom, Part 5

#  **3.7.5 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Bloom, Part 5**

Eventually, someone has to break the silence.

“The report went well. They were a little disappointed that we couldn’t take the man alive or interrogate them, but at least we’ve cleansed the place of the worst elements.” Mari says.

“There’s a lot we don’t know.” I say regretfully. “I shouldn’t have killed him so quickly.”

Sayaka shakes her head. “If there had been any nearby ninja to check in on what was going in, and he had been alive — your secret would have been out.”

I grimace. “I...wasn’t thinking about that at all.”

“What, then?” Mari asks curiously.

“...Revenge.”

“Good.” The blunette says decisively.

“Good?” Mari echoes.

“It means he hasn’t been taken over by his Ice.” Sayaka states curtly. “If he can act that impulsively on such a raw emotion? That’s good. Hey, Yuki, since we already know your big secret, could you tell us more about your Ice? I’d like to know what you can do, at least, as well as the finer aspects of your aberration.”

“...Alright.” I say softly, unable to find a hole in her logic. They know enough to have me killed, anyways. There’s no longer any point to not trusting them. “Let me sit up, at least. This isn’t a story I want to tell lying down.”

...

“Oh, so that’s how you met Setsuna.”

“Wait, you started your apprenticeship two years earlier than me?!”

“Ah, no wonder you’re a better healer.”

I don’t bother to correct Mari’s assumption. 

“Wait, this means you’re even stronger than you were in the Fourth-Star Examination!”

“Captain! We’ve got to fight now!” 

“After he recovers, you dumbass!” 

“Ow! Don’t hit me!”

“Wait, so you’re also able to regenerate, too?”

“Yes. That’s why I survived getting stabbed through the heart. It’d be virtually impossible to heal that kind of wound to yourself before dying.”

_Well, that’s not quite true. Indirect healing would work just fine._

Mari seems to remember something from when we first met. 

“Wait, so when you threw that Ice spear—“

“Yeah, you pissed me off enough for my control to lapse.” 

“Wait, shouldn’t it be the other way around? Anger and passion is a warm emotion, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, but maintaining control over my Ice requires a certain level of emotional control. Since it’s an aberration and therefore natural, it can be easy to slip up on. Although I’ll say that those were…particular circumstances. That being said, acting out of anger does weaken my Ice, so it isn’t a useful emotion.” 

“Neat.” 

“I didn’t know aberrations could evolve like that. That’s pretty cool.” 

“It’s not as great as you think it is, Sayaka.”

“Since so much of my life was focused on hiding and defense, my Ice adapted to be that way. Well, sort of. There’s one thing I’m pretty sure is common amongst all Ice Users.” 

“Is that the Veil you mentioned?” 

“Yes, precisely. It’s the thing responsible for killing off one’s emotions enough to turn Ice Users into psychopaths. Well, the Veil is just a visual representation that makes it easy for me to picture how my soul works. I’m still not sure on the exact mechanics, even with Hikaru’s research and analysis.”

“So you were able to figure it out beforehand, making sure you wouldn’t be like that?” 

“Not by myself. If Hikaru and Setsuna hadn’t been there…well, it took me ten months of dedicated meditation and assistance before I could actually manipulate it. Seven just to perceive it. Without them, I couldn’t have ever found it. _”_

“So now that you _have_ figured it out…you’re good, then? You’re not going to go all ‘time to die’ on us?”

“Gods above, Mari. Short answer: no.”

“Long answer?”

“I have to dip into the Veil to use anything more than my really basic Ice abilities. The colder I get, the worse I am. And I assume that past a certain point…well, I stop being who I am entirely.”

“…Ah.”

“So that’s how…” 

_It’s how I stabbed Setsuna through the heart without flinching._

Setsuna herself has been silent for nearly the entire conversation, only talking when directly asked something. She seems…thoughtful. Or just tired. It’s hard to tell, even with all the experience I have reading her face. 

As if reading my mind, she glances at me, raising an eyebrow quizzically. I smile back at her, trying my best to project reassurance. The slight widening of her eyes indicates confusion. 

I glance quickly from Sayaka to Mari, then back to her.

_After they leave._

Her expression clears up. Comprehension. Then she smiles back at me, a small shy thing. Agreement.

“Hey, Mari, let’s come back tomorrow. They’ve had a rough day, and probably want to sleep soon.”

Apparently Sayaka’s picked up on the message we’ve sent. Bless her soul. 

“Oh…wow, is it almost dark already? Damn. Yeah, I want to sleep today off too. What a nightmare.” 

The blunette shrugs. “Fun, though.”

I send her an incredulous look. She responds with her trademark smirk.

“See you guys later.” She says cheerfully. 

“Good night.”

Mari waves us goodbye, too, and soon we’re home alone. Warm hands wrap around my waist the second the door closes. 

“Setsuna?”

“I’m so sorry, Yuki…I…” The back of my shirt grows damp as she buries her face into it. “I’m so sorry—“

“Woah, wait, where is this coming from?” I ask, bewildered. 

“I…I ruined everything…they—“ 

“One second.” I pry apart her hands from my waist so I can turn to face her. “No, you didn’t. It was bound to happen eventually.” 

I realize belatedly that she’s crying, something I haven’t seen in a few months. Once again, I’m not too sure how to handle it. 

“If I hadn’t — if you hadn’t — _gods_ , Yuki, I…” Her hand traces over my chest, over the area she’d stabbed me. It’ll never scar, thanks to my regeneration, but I’m certain that she’ll never forget the spot for as long as she lives. An invisible scar. “If I had…if I had killed you, I…” 

“You won’t.” 

“Wha—“

“I’m not going to die yet.” I say softly. “I’m not ready. There’s too much I have to live for.” 

“That…Yuki, that isn’t your choice—“

“It is.” I say, the Ice melting away. “It is.” 

She stares at me in disbelief.

“I won’t let myself die. I promise.” The words sound hollow to me, to both of us — she’s right, after all. When and how I die...such a thing won’t be decided by me, short of something like suicide. But still…this promise isn’t simple empty words. It’s something I’ll bind myself to. 

_Words have power. If you truly believe...if you can fuel it with a little bit of intent..._

**_I won’t die yet._ **

“…When you...when you healed me...how?”

“What?”

“How did you heal me?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Yuki. My heart was destroyed. I felt it. So…how?”

I remain silent. 

“Indirect healing, right?” She says quietly, but firmly.

_So she’s aware of it. Damn._

“Yes.” I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes.

“How much? How much did you lose?”

I open my mouth, a lie on my lips. “Not that mu—“

“Please, Yuki.” 

“...Twenty years, give or take.” 

Her breath catches in her throat. 

_I’m sorry, but you wanted an honest answer, didn’t you? Even now, I can feel the gap in my soul where there once_ was. _It’s fixable, certainly. But I can’t tell you about that. My Vow won’t let me._

“I’ve cost you that much, huh…?” She whispers, nearly inaudible. At a loss for words, I just tighten my grip on her.

“If I wasn’t…so weak…” 

“What do you mean?” 

“If I just hadn’t been there at all—“ 

“Setsuna…” I protest, but she cuts me off with a forceful shake of her head.

“That magus…wouldn’t have been able to possess any of you. Your qi would have nullified his attempts. That’s why the only people he possessed were civilians. Civilians, and…”

_And you, Setsuna. But…_

“That isn’t your fault. It’s not something we could have possibly anticipated. You’re beating yourself up over something you couldn’t have controlled.”

She shakes her head. “I…I could have. I could detect his field, after all. I just…didn’t realize—“

“Wait, what field?” I ask, stunned. “I didn’t sense anything.”

The sealer shrugs, still looking despondent. “It was _really_ obvious to me. You didn’t know?”

“None of us did. Except you, I guess.”

Setsuna cringes. “Another failure, then. Another…”

“Hold on, Setsuna. What field? Where? What did it do?”

“It covered nearly the entire sector. As for what it did…? Well, it gave him sensory abilities and allowed him to possess civilians…and me. Once I got close enough to the house, he hijacked my body and used me as bait.”

“…Long range possession? Through a field?” My mouth twists into a grimace. “I didn’t know such a thing was possible…and with multiple people, too…this mage really was stronger than we’d anticipated. At least his specialties revolved around stealth and utility, or we would really have been in trouble.”

“…Yuki…”

Ah. She’s seen through my attempts at deflection, of changing the subject. I really…don’t know how to approach her feelings right now. In some ways, she isn’t wrong — had she not been there, the mission _would_ have gone better. That is true.

“But it’s wrong to think like that.” 

“What?”

“Even if you could have detected his field, there was absolutely no way you could have foresaw the consequences. Say you had told us. None of us could even detect the field, let alone analyze it. Obviously, you couldn’t, either. We couldn’t have known. If you had told me about the field then, there’s a good chance I would have simply called off the mission entirely.” 

“Then what? Who knows what that magus could have done with some preparation? That magus had already successfully killed more than a few ninja. The advantage of qi-piercing rifles is tremendous in numbers, and by using his puppets to coordinate…we needed to stop him then and there. What happened as a consequence sucked, but…the mission _was_ a success, and I consider what happened an acceptable sacrifice.” 

Setsuna flinches. “You’re…you’re really too cruel at times, Yuki…” 

I blink, confused by the non-sequitur. “What?”

She doesn’t elaborate, burying her face in my chest as her tears flow anew. Some time passes before she’s willing to speak again.

“…Why?”

“Hm?”

“Why do you put up with me? I…I cause you so much trouble, Yuki. I know…you told me before, but…it’s not worth it, Yuki. It’s not.” 

A flash of insight:

_For some reason, a reason I can’t ascertain…there’s some part of Setsuna that really, really hates herself._

This. This is that reason, isn’t it? It makes absolutely no sense, but I know I’m right. 

“You aren’t a burden to me!” I snap. She jumps, startled. “You…you _idiot!_ You’re so fucking stupid! How could you think that?” 

“Y-Yuki, I—“

“No, shut up. Shut up. Gods damn it.” I tear myself away from her, pacing angrily across the room. “I can’t believe — after everything you’ve done for me, you really think that?” 

She stares at me, wide-eyed. 

“I’m fucking terrible at this, if you’re still able to think that. Hell, I’ve spent so much time as a damned ninja that I don’t know how to be a person.” My teeth grind together. “And you think you’re the useless one. Fucking hell. No, that isn’t your fault. This is my fault. Maybe I shouldn’t have waited. Trying to figure out my own damned feelings hasn’t been going anywhere. I keep putting it off. Mission this, mission that. Training, training, training. You think I would’ve figured this shit out by now. I should have just come out and said it.” 

“…What?” 

I swallow, then gather as much courage as I can muster, leaning forward, grabbing her by the shoulders-- 

“I **love** you, Setsuna.” The words pour out from me in a rush, as if a great tension has been released. Is being released. 

Her mouth falls open. 

I shake my head. “It was so easy to say, too, damn it...I’ve been such a coward, haven’t I? I’m so sorry, Setsuna. For letting you—”

“…Please don’t apologize to me.” Setsuna says tremulously. “Or I’ll cry again.”

I close my mouth. The sealer stares at me blankly, clearly processing her thoughts. 

“I…you love me?” She asks weakly. “Not in…not in the way I’m thinking, right?”

Despite the tension in my heart, I feel my lips curl into a wry smirk. “Depends on the way you’re thinking.”

“…The romantic way?”

“Then you’d be wrong.” 

Setsuna whimpers, curling up into a ball on the couch. 

“Please tell me you’re joking.” 

“Afraid not.”

“…Ah, hell.” She whispers under her breath. I stare blankly as Ice creeps up my heart, already anticipating her next words.

“I’m…I’m sorry, Yuki. But…I don’t feel that way. You…You’re my closest friend, and I really, truly do care about you. But I don’t have romantic feelings for you. I’m…I’m sorry.” 

“I…see.” I turn away from her, suddenly finding it impossible to meet her eyes. Not that she’s looking this way anyways. 

“…Yuki…” She murmurs, sounding miserable. I shake my head.

_Huh. Guess I’d read the signs wrong. Although this probably really wasn’t the best time and place for a confession. Hell, I hadn’t planned on it myself. It just…slipped out, along with all of my anger and exasperation. It’s said and done, now. There’s no taking it back. Not that I would in the first place._

_But then…what’s this sense of emptiness I feel?_

“Well. I’m going to head out for a bit.” I say, turning away from her. “I just need to take a walk.” 

“You’ll…you’ll come back, right?” She asks. I glance back at her, at the vulnerability suddenly present within her voice and shining through her eyes— 

_That’s such a selfish request, Setsuna…!_

“Of course.”

_…But I can’t turn it down. No matter how much I’m hurt, I can’t…I can’t just leave you alone._

“Always.” I say softly. “I just…need some time to myself.” 

_…_

In the end, I scale one of the several cliffs of our village, allowing me an unfettered view of the night sky. All of those points of light, dotting the vast expanse of black. For some reason, I take comfort in the sight. I don’t know what it is about it. They’re just…there. 

“Didn’t take you for a star-gazer, captain.” 

I glance to my left. Mari’s standing next to me, crimson eyes trained on me.

“I like the stars. They’re so very lonely out there by themselves, you know? But they keep on shining anyways.” 

“…Huh. Wouldn’t have expected something like that from you of all people. That was surprisingly romantic of you.” 

“How’d you find me?” I change the subject bluntly. She doesn’t look surprised by the sudden shift.

“I tracked you from your departure. I’d been sitting on my roof when I noticed you leaving, and you seemed to be in quite the rush so I just followed you out here.” She scratches her head awkwardly. “Sorry, would you have preferred to be alone?”

I sigh. “Mm…if it’s you, it’s alright. Come, take a seat.” I pat the ground next to me. 

“Alright.” She does as I request. “So, what’s on your mind?”

I don’t bother beating around the bush. “I confessed to Setsuna.” 

The Storm User blinks, then grins. “Congratulations, then. I’m sure you two—“ 

“She turned me down.”

Mari’s jaw drops. “She _what_ —“

“She turned me down.” I repeat, looking back up at the dotted sky. 

“…I don’t know what to say.” She admits. “I…she really…”

“She doesn’t feel the same way I do. That’s all there is to it.”

“Captain…no, _Yuki_ …” Mari murmurs. 

“It’s fine. Nothing will change. It’ll just be a few weeks of awkwardness before the status quo resumes.” I shrug. “There’s no problem.” 

“You do that a lot, you know. Bury away all of your emotions.” 

I snort. “Comes with the territory. That, and…well, perhaps I’m afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“I’m afraid of facing my feelings.” 

Mari scowls. “You’re not using the Veil to suppress your feelings, are you?” 

I wince.

“Don’t do that.” 

Sighing exasperatedly, I retort, “Why not? It doesn’t hurt me.” 

“Not true. It doesn’t hurt you physically or emotionally, no.” She leans forward, poking me in the chest. “It hurts you _here_.”

“Yes, my cardiovascular system.” I say dryly. 

She lightly punches my arm. “Don’t be stupid. It stunts your future emotional and social growth, Yuki. Learning how to understand, interpret, and cope with your feelings is an important part of growing up.”

…I can’t immediately disagree with that. 

“Why are you scared, Yuki?”

I’m unsure how to answer that.

“Don’t be…you’re not alone, you know? I’m here for you. Sayaka’s here for you. There’s people out there who’ll gladly comfort you. You’re not alone.” She pulls me into a gentle hug. “We’re here for you.” 

“Thanks, Mari.” I say, voice muffled. “I…I appreciate that.” 

“So let it go, alright? Please?”

“…Kay.” 

I do as she says. 

It feels…surprisingly empty. I guess I’d expected to break down crying, or something equally dramatic, but…no, I just feel empty inside. Cold. 

“Brr. You’re pretty cool to the touch.”

I wince as static electricity crackles between us. “And you’re zappy.“

“I’m working on it, okay?” She says, sounding genuinely flustered as she tries to back out of the hug. I smile softly, refusing to let go.

“I didn’t say I minded. You’re warm.” 

“I — damn it, Yuki.” I feel her shake her head, but she stops trying to escape. “You’re so strange. Who wouldn’t mind getting electrocuted?”

Concentrating, I reinforce myself with a layer of Etheria running under my skin. “Someone who can negate it, of course.”

A jolt of electricity fizzles out against my skin. Storm or not, Etheria doesn’t play by the same rules as qi, and the drainage is negligible. I could do this for decades. 

“B-But...how?” Mari asks. “That — that shouldn’t be possible. Even my residual electricity should be able to pierce your resistances. But...”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, if you put any effort into it at all, it would hurt. But something like this? I can handle it.”

“I...I see.” The Storm User goes silent for a moment. “Wait, I’m supposed to be the one comforting you!”

Despite everything, I can’t help but smile. “You are.”

And, to my surprise, those words aren’t a lie. That emptiness I felt so keenly before...feels diminished, somehow, filled with starlight and a little bit of electricity.

“I’m glad, Yuki. I’m glad.” 

…

Eventually — twenty six minutes, thirty two seconds later — Mari lets go, a warm smile on her face. 

“Hey, Yuki, I’m hungry. Wanna go eat?” 

“Mm…sure.”

We eat a rather lovely meal together at the usual BBQ place — the salty meat, in particular, demands my attention and refuses to let me think of much else. The conversation is constantly active, and, surprisingly, doesn’t feel too forced. She talks about a whole variety of things, some ninja-related, some not, deftly avoiding the landmines in the room. All in all, I really do have a good time. 

She leaves me with something to think about, though— 

“Maybe she’s just scared.” 

“Scared?”

“If you guys started dating, but broke up...maybe she’s afraid of losing you. She and I...we’re friends, but we’re not that close. Not like how you guys are. Maybe she’s just afraid that she’ll have nothing left...I don’t know, of course, but maybe...” 

“I see. Thank you for the insight.” 

Afterwards, we split up — she heads home, and I decide to wander the streets for a bit, ducking in and out of shops, exploring new streets, visiting the library—

But no matter what I do, I can’t escape the emptiness that slowly creeps back into my heart. My initial thought is to simply seal it away with the Veil, but…

_“Don’t be stupid. It stunts your future emotional and social growth, Yuki. Learning how to understand, interpret, and cope with your feelings is an important part of growing up.”_

As much as it bothers me, then, I’ll just have to…deal with it. 

_And maybe if I stop running away from my feelings, I’ll figure out how to live with them instead._

... 

It’s about ten minutes before midnight by the time I make my way back home.

Standing in front of the door, I pause, unsure…then pull on the Veil a little bit. Although I’d wanted to get used to feeling pain and the like without it, I think it’s for the best that I block _some_ of it out. I’m not sure how I’ll interact with her this soon after what happened without it.

Once I open the door, Setsuna greets me at the entrance, looking immensely relieved.

“You came back.” She murmurs, stepping forward to hug me tightly.

I hesitate, unsure if I ought to return it or not, wondering where the boundaries for physical contact lie. After a few seconds, though, I tentatively rest my hands on her back, patting a little awkwardly. She seems to linger for a little longer than usual before pulling away, turning away to head for the bedroom. 

“Do you still _want_ to sleep on the bed with me?” I ask. “If you don’t, I don’t mind the couch.” 

Her back stiffens a bit. 

“N-No. If it’s o-okay with you, I-I…can we sleep together, still…?” Her request is incredibly awkward and hesitant, but— 

_It’s selfish, but I can’t help but feel relieved. I had truly gotten used to her presence by me, and I…didn’t want to lose that._

“Sure.” I reply as evenly as possible, trying to avoid letting my emotions leak through. 

“…T-Thank you, Yuki. I’m…sorry.”

I blink, a bit confused at the apology. “It’s…fine…?” 

She departs rather hastily, electing to shower first and therefore remove any doubts about that particular aspect of our lives.

Once she’s done — I politely avert my gaze as she exits to avoid seeing anything — I take my own turn, then prepare for bed.

“…You’re leaving your shirt on?” She asks, confused.

“It’s probably for the best.” I say awkwardly.

_It’ll help reduce some of the intimacy._

“A-Ah, okay.” I kill the lamp, and we lie down. It’s notable that she elects to lie _next_ to me rather than on top of my shoulder, like I’m used to.

_It feels a lot less warm in here. It’s fine, though. Temperature doesn’t particularly bother me, so…_

“Good night, Setsuna.”

A pause. “Good night, Yuki.” 

I close my eyes and try to sleep. Thirty minutes, then sixty, then a hundred and twenty pass. No matter what I do, the unsettled, anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach refuses to leave. 

_Things are different now. And I don’t know what...what to expect._

At three hours I call it a lost cause, and stealthily slip out of bed. Then, quietly, I exit the house, making my way to a nearby training field. 

_Thwack!_

An arrow stabs deep into the center of the target. I try to clear my mind, but find that it’s surprisingly challenging to do without the Veil. Not when my mind’s this...disturbed. Frankly, it’s irritating. I want to give up, let myself dive back into the Veil.

But Mari’s right. I need to change. I need to become better. For Setsuna and...for myself.

It’ll hurt now, but... 

_It’ll be worth it._

…Right?

Another arrow finds its mark. 

I grimace.

_Am I...strong enough for this?_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read and review and drop a kudos! :)


	73. (3.7.6) Bloom, Closing

#  **3.7.6 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Bloom, Closing (Mari’s POV)**

Tonight’s a particularly bitter night. But the temperature isn’t especially cold. It has nothing to do with the weather, either. I already know it’s because of the events that happened earlier this night. In particular, that one conversation…

…

“Let me in, Setsuna!” I shout, pounding on the door.

It takes a few seconds, but she does eventually open it, looking a little alarmed.

“M-Mari?! What the—“

I step in, brushing past her and waiting for her to close the door behind me.

“You. Yuki. Explain.” 

“Ah.” She says, her face instantly closing off. “He told you?” 

“Of course he did. We’re friends, the same as you and I. So explain, Setsuna. What the fuck?” 

She averts her gaze. “Look, I really,  _ really _ don’t want to talk about this now—“ 

“Then  _ when _ , Setsuna?” I cut her off, glaring at her. “You know as well as I the risks of our profession. How long are you going to wait? How long are you going to drag him around?” 

“Drag him around!? I’m not—“

“Move out of his house, then. Stop sleeping with him. You can’t make him live with you with that kind of proximity, always having him wonder ‘what if?’, never giving him the chance to get over you. If you really care about him, give him the space to move on!” 

Her eyes widen, a crack in her mask. “Mari, that’s—“ 

“What’s wrong? Can’t do it? Won’t?” I press. 

“I can’t — I can’t just…” 

“Coward.” I mutter. “You know what’s best for him, and you still choose otherwise…?” 

Her mouth opens and closes wordlessly.

“I just want to know one thing. Answer me honestly. Setsuna, do you have romantic feelings for Yuki?”

She looks me in the eyes.

“No.”

I stare at her silently. Whether or not she’s consciously aware of it…I’ve heard her true answer.

“If you say so.” I turn around, intending to head out before a sudden, malicious thought crosses my mind. And I simply don’t have the heart to stop it.

“You know that Sayaka’s interested in him, don’t you?” 

My sixth sense crackles in response as she stiffens up.

“I’m aware.” 

“Did you know that Yuki’s been holding back on your behalf? Because he wanted to be with you?”

“I…”

“If you really don’t like him as you say, then…well, you shouldn’t have any objections. Sayaka’s a good girl, and a formidable ninja in her own right. So don’t interfere. It’s not your concern, anyways.”

Without another word, I depart, irritation simmering in my blood.

_ Why!? Why was  _ **_this_ ** _ what you chose!? _

...

“Welcome home, sis. Are you okay? You don’t look happy.” 

“Thanks, Ayaka. And, well...my precious people are being stupid again.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll be taking a small break from the super-fast posting schedule to get some love into our other stories! 
> 
> While you're waiting, you should check them out:  
> Defiance: Canonical Hikaru series examining her Academy life.  
> Unchained, Side Alune: Short AU Setsuna and Yuki fic where they meet far earlier.  
> Spellbook: A series of canonical one-shots!  
> Team Dragon: The biggest AU of all where Sayaka and Kaede are put onto Yuki's team!


	74. (3.8.1) Interlude 2, Chapter Mari

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read the end notes!

#  **3.8.1 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Interlude 2, Chapter Mari**

_I’ve failed again._

No matter how much I try to distract myself, I can’t get that thought out of my head. 

_If I had been more aware…he wouldn’t have had to reveal it at all. I could have protected him. I_ **_should_ ** _have protected him!_

Sparks crackle across my skin. Unlike Yuki, who has seemingly near-perfect control, never revealing his aberration until he needed it to save all of us, my control over my aberration is…frankly, not good. I’ve learned to harness its power, certainly, but control it? 

_No._

So I can respect Yuki, who _has_ controlled his aberration. Certainly Ice isn’t as outright volatile as Storm is, but it’s still very respectable. Well, I respected him long before I knew about his Ice. That’s just the way Yuki is. He’s someone…suited to lead me. To...to hold my leash. 

_It might be time...to tell him about that._

Even now, I remember the gentle coolness of Yuki’s embrace. It certainly wasn’t the warmth that I would have expected from just about anyone else, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, either. A nice pillow, maybe. It definitely wasn’t unpleasant in the way that Ice might suggest. Not like my own hugs, which are outright painful at best and dangerous at worst. 

_He’s someone I can touch intimately without hurting._

That thought, in particular, sends a tiny little thrill through me. I tried making things work with that one boy, Haruka, but...I couldn’t even embrace him without hurting him. Ability to heal himself or not, no one wants to deal with that. I’d all but resigned myself to only have a relationship of the mind with someone, or something like that.

But...now?

Well, as interesting as dating Yuki would be, he’s not my type. He’s very nice, but the same thing that makes it easy for me to touch him makes him a bit too vanilla for my taste. But I still respect and trust him enough to give him control over me. And having that safety matters way more than any physical comfort he could give me. But, I mean, if I can get that comfort while maintaining this bond? Well, that might be a little bit different. And Setsuna, for whatever reason, turned him down. 

_That just screams opportunity to me._

I don’t want to date him, no, but fuck him? This is quite literally the best opportunity I’ve ever had in my entire life. And maybe we could even figure out how to generalize whatever it is he does so that my future lovers could handle me too...

“Hey, don’t space out on me.” 

I snap back into reality as Yuki scolds me, shooting him an incredulous look as he points at the book laid between us. I’m over at his house, lounging around as we go over some information about Arcacia in his basement room. 

_Looks kind of like mine, actually, except he’s got two rooms. And mine’s a little more...well-defended._

“You’re one to talk! You do the same every other day!”

“So you should avoid picking up my bad habits.” He scolds me, a hint of a smirk on his face.

It’s been about two months since that confession Yuki made to Setsuna. He seemed a bit moody at first, but he settled down after a few weeks. More interestingly, though, is the way he’s begun slowly changing, becoming more...well, to be frank, becoming more human. His reactions have always been subtle, although his voice was comparatively expressive.

Small steps. It’s just a small step to make him more human, but so very meaningful. I’m...well, I’m glad that he’s begun to adapt. Now that I know where to look...it’s obvious that he’s stopped utilizing his Veil nearly as much as he used to—

“Mari!”

“Gah! Okay, okay!” I yelp. “I’m paying attention!”

He shoots me a mildly disbelieving look. 

“What’d I just say, then?”

“Er…something about magic.” 

The Ice User snorts. “Something like that. Pay attention, Mari, this knowledge could be the difference between life and death.”

“Yes, sir.” I tease, but obediently settle in anyways, looking up at him expectantly. He rolls his eyes. 

“Well. Anyways, the differences between magic and qi aren’t too pronounced. Apparently, we even share the same elements — fire, water, wind (air), earth. However, where we have mutations in the form of _aberrations_ , they have mutations in the form of _clairvoyants._ ” 

“Like that man who could smell our affinities?” I ask, remembering our mission to the west capital. 

“Exactly so.” He says approvingly. “Clairvoyants possess the innate ability to see beyond the visible. One of the most coveted examples of this, so far as I can tell, is _Magesight_ , the ability to visually see magic.” 

“Could someone with magesight see qi too?”

“That, I’m not sure about. They’re different systems, but strongly related…that’s a maybe.”

“Got it. Wait, can _we_ see magic?” 

Yuki shakes his head. “I don’t know. Setsuna can sense it, but she has _exceptional_ control. Also, I think her low qi potential makes her more sensitive to it.” 

“Right, she was able to detect the possession field, but we couldn’t.” 

“Exactly so. We couldn’t even _sense_ it, which is a bit concerning. Then again, it only needed to be strong enough to possess civilians. I’m sure a stronger field would have been more obvious.” 

“Hmm…you have great control though, don’t you?”

He shrugs. “Only great. Setsuna has near-perfect control due to how efficient she has to be, while Sayaka is just plain more talented than I am. Both of them have higher levels of control.”

I can’t resist a grin at the mention of Sayaka. We’ve been getting along pretty well — as it turns out, her integration into the team didn’t cause any real problems. Even the fallout from that confession didn’t change much. As Yuki’d predicted, it only took a few weeks for things to basically return to normal. I could barely even tell the two of them were having problems at all. 

I’m glad. I was worried that it might’ve broken our team apart, but we — and by we, I mean Yuki and Setsuna — weathered it well enough. We haven’t had any significant problems since then — with the way our team revolves around Yuki, any real problem gets snuffed out pretty quickly. Not that we’ve had much, other than some ongoing friction between Setsuna and Sayaka, but even that’s tapered down from what it used to be. 

An ice cube snaps off of my forehead before I can react. 

“Mari!”

“Huh? Oh. Oops.” 

“Is there something on your mind? You’re usually inattentive at the best of times, but this is kind of ridiculous.” 

My mind drifts back to my original thought. 

_My leash..._

“Maybe.” I admit. 

“Would you like to get it off your mind?” He offers. “You’ve done that plenty of times for me, after all.” 

“It’s a bit serious.” She says quietly. “Are we going to get interrupted anytime soon?”

“We shouldn’t.” He shakes his head. “Setsuna’s out for the day, running a minor in-village mission with Sayaka.”

“Right.” I take a deep breath. “Well...here goes, Yuki. Or...perhaps it’s better to say... _master._ ” 

He blinks. “I...assume you have an excellent reason for choosing that particular form of address?” 

“A very good one.” I breathe out. “You, Yuki...you’re the one I’ve chosen to hold my leash. Or perhaps it’s better to say that Katsuo and I have chosen you to hold my leash, after those first few days where we got to see what you could do.”

He gestures for me to go on, clearly digesting the information.

“He wanted to see if you could lead me. The other stuff we talked about that day was also important, but less so. That was the most important thing. He wanted to see if I would be able to respect you enough to eventually have you hold my leash. And it turned out that I could. He’s been developing your skills in order to make you able to do just that.” 

“This leash...” He says slowly. “It’s not _real,_ right? It’s a matter of speaking?”

I nod. 

“So...to use your analogy, you’re like a dog, and I’m your owner.” 

I wince. “More or less, that’s correct.”

“And this is all necessary because...” He closes his eyes, thinking. “Ah. Ahhh. Back at the beginning, right? When I asked why you didn’t just find a mentor?”

I bite my lip, remembering. “Yeah. Because I killed the last one who tried. On accident, but...because I couldn’t control my powers...” 

“And you think that I can do that? Control you? You’re _quite_ a great deal stronger than I am, Mari.” 

“But that won’t always be the case.” I disagree. “And now that I know about your Ice, all the more so.”

He closes his eyes, contemplative. I clench my fists nervously. 

“What would change?”

“Nothing. I needed to tell you this, though, so you would understand. And...it’s only fair, anyways, with what I know about you now.”

“...Is this what you want?”

“It’s what I _need_. Putting myself on a leash, so to speak...it helps me keep myself in check. It’s a mental thing, just like your Aberration. The Storm wants to break free. Keeping it _leashed_ is what keeps the people around me safe.”

“Katsuo held your leash before this, right? Why is he passing it on to me?”

“Because he can’t always be there for me.” I avert my eyes. “Especially now, not that we’ve moved away from him as a four-man cell. It was inevitable, of course, but...” 

“I see.” When I look back to him, his eyes are open, staring right at me. “Well, Mari. I accept this responsibility.”

A wave of relief washes through me. “Thank you.” 

_I know Yuki. He's acting like it isn't that big of a deal, but it's a tremendous thing I've just told him. That I'm...almost, what did he say? Like a dog, in some ways. Choosing to accept that bond means a lot to me. It means...that maybe I'm not just a burden after all. Or someone...who should be feared._

“Well, given the weight of what we just talked about, I guess we can consider our theoretical lesson over. Let’s move on to the practical, then?”

“Yesssss!” I stand up, stretching, as I walk over to the other basement room with him. “Sorry, Yuki, you know how I am.” 

_And I appreciate the opportunity to move around. All this pent-up energy needs to go somewhere, you know?_

“I do.” He says agreeably as he seals the door behind us, then unseals a flask from who knows where and takes a deep sip of it.

I’m not stupid, but I don’t learn well from reading and listening. I’ve always preferred _doing_. Yuki’s sort of the opposite, preferring to learn the theoretical concepts just as much as he enjoys the practical aspect of qi. A researcher and a fighter, kind of like Hikaru Kozakura. 

Yuki could explain his Ice abilities to me all day, but I’d much rather _see_ them. And the best way to do that?

“Begin!” 

In an instant, my spear is drawn and swung in a crackling arc, aimed to crash into his side. He counters instantly with his own blade, neon blue meeting clear aquamarine for the briefest moment before he deflects it.

Grinning savagely, I slash at him a dozen times, but he cleanly deflects each strike. Still, my raw speed and strength are too much for him to fight head-on, so he stomps his foot hard, Ice erupting from the ground around him. 

I stab my blade forcefully into the ground, a pulse of qi erupting from the tip and disrupting his Ice field. Letting it go, I lunge towards Yuki, armed with nothing more than my hands and feet.

Weaving around him with my superior agility, I rebound off a wall and dart into his blindspot — but he’s predicted that, drawing his second blade and beginning a skilled dance of whirling steel that forces me to back off. Only for a moment, though — then I dart in, a lance of lightning leaping off my fingertips into a gap in the formation. 

Wind ripples off his blade, sending him away from the bolt. Courtesy of Setsuna, his blades are covered in seals that mimic his _Gale Stance_ or whatever it’s called, so he can use a rough mockery of it even while utilizing Ice. 

I duck around one of his flashing blades, wind rippling around the room, and _lunge_ under his guard, fist crashing into his stomach. To my surprise and delight, he doesn’t falter in the slightest. A sharp jolt of electricity rocks his system, but he somehow cancels the paralysis with a nifty bit of healing before Ice bursts into being around him, frost forming around my outstretched fist. Narrowing my eyes, I spring away from him, a pulse of qi shattering the Ice growing on me.

“First blood.” He says flatly.

I blink, staring at my hand. Water and blood drips from a dozen tiny puncture wounds where his element had stabbed into me.

“Huh.”

I flip away to my sword, tearing it out of the ground and using it to deflect a hail of icicles. Sweeping my blade, I send an arc of lightning rippling towards him as a whip forms in my offhand. He ducks under the crescent of energy, but isn’t able to stop me as my lasso wraps around one of his blades to forcefully remove it from his grasp. Then I manipulate the lightning to attack him with his own blade. 

Looking mildly annoyed, he deflects the attack, then starts moving as I chase him around with careful movements of my whip. Eventually, he manages to sever the whip in two with a particularly vicious slash, but he’s already given me the time to charge up a particularly tricky attack.

_“Flashpoint!”_

Yuki flinches as a burst of light erupts from my palm, a blinding series of sparks flying towards his face as he produces an Ice wall to block the attack. Smirking, I thrust my arm outwards. A bolt of lightning blasts off my palm, ricochets off the wall next to him, and smacks into his side, sending him sprawling. I move to pursue when my legs suddenly give way, sending me falling to my knees.

“Wha—“ 

_When his Ice stabbed me? Can he poison it? Ah, that vial from earlier—_

It’s the first time Yuki’s shown off this particular trick to me. I grin even as I struggle to get my body to cooperate. 

“Surrender?” He asks. 

“It’ll take a lot more than this to keep me down.” I reply honestly. 

With a burst of Storm, I fry the paralysis out of my system, hopping to my feet and taking a combat stance once more.

His eyes widen. “But that — that’s not how that works!” 

I shrug. “Well…”

“I surrender.” He cuts me off abruptly. “Anything after this would be beyond what I’m willing to put out in a spar.” 

For a moment, my Storm flickers, wanting to continue the fight. I hold it back with the relative ease of long practice. 

“Ah, good.” I say, then collapse onto my stomach. 

“What—“ 

“Didn’t…ugh…really remove the poison. Just…negated the paralysis. Controlling body with qi. Could’ve forced fight after, but would’ve sucked. Help?”

“Ah.” He replies as he walks his way over to me, dissolving his ice as he does so. “That makes sense.”

“Yes. Purge the poison, please?”

The poison seems pretty mild, nothing more than a simple paralytic that targets the limbs. The feeling is a bit discomforting, though, and I want it gone.

“Nah.” He says casually, and he—

“Are you sitting on me?!” I yelp in disbelief. 

“Yep.” He waves a book in front of my face.

“Now that you’re in the correct state for learning, let’s look at the difference between the soldiers of Arcacia and Lunaria, shall we?”

I glare balefully at him. Or…well, the wall. I can’t really see him from where he’s pinning me to the ground. But I can pretend the wall is him, or something…

…At least it’s not hot, I guess. 

“First, weaponry. Lunarian civilians use primarily shields and spears, because they’re easy to use. Ranged weapons are typically crossbows, although we’ve started moving on to firearms as superior forms of weaponry. Our elite soldiers use guns and longbows, the latter of which are slowly being phased out. Why don’t we have more guns, student?” 

“Because gunpowder is a bitch to make correctly.” I say sullenly. 

“Yay! Ten points to Mari! This is why guns aren't a standard issue across all soldiers. They are a dramatically superior mundane weapon of war to virtually everything else simply because a man who is virtually untrained can be given one, hurled onto the battlefield alongside a thousand of his peers, and be expected to be semi-useful. But we don’t have enough of it.”

“What about Arcacia?” I ask, interested despite myself. 

“They use the same thing we do, except with a lot more guns. Their alchemists are orders of magnitude better, so they can arm more people with guns, and their magic is far more compatible with enchantments than qi is. That mage we killed was probably working on live-testing improvements to their enchantments, as an example of some of the things they might be able to do. They also have vastly superior manpower. Now, Mari, what stops them from simply invading us with their larger and more well-equipped armies?”

“Spellweavers and special units.”

“Ten more points to Mari! Right now, we have…forty-two ninth-star ninja and three spellweavers. All of them, but especially the latter, are matches for thousands of civilian units and even perhaps hundreds of mages. Besides that, we have a whole bunch of rising stars as well — hell, Mari, you’d be one of them. All of them have to be carefully played around. On top of that, invading Alune means invading all of Lunaria. As much infighting as there is between villages, we all will and _have_ banded together to combat the outside threat.”

“The First Arcacian War, right?” 

“Precisely so. That conflict stalemated when we repelled them from our borders. Arcacia is a little too hard for us to invade, and teamwork between ninja villages begins falling apart as morale is lost. We don’t really have the initiative to invade, nor the manpower to control a hostile territory…those are some of the logistics that prevent us from invading ourselves.” 

“Also the mage villages.” I remind him dryly.

“Also those.” He acknowledges. “But then again, we’ve never seriously attempted to take one down.”

“Well, we haven’t even breached the Great Wall.” 

“Mm.” 

The Great Wall is an absolutely massive Arcacian construct that covers thousands of kilometers and is made of brick and steel. It’s covered in magical and mundane defenses and constantly patrolled by Mage Knights and soldiers, separating the Highlands from the Lowlands. 

It’s pivotal to pierce it given how thoroughly it cuts us off from the rest of Arcacia, but Lunarians haven’t even managed to bring a force near it for mostly logistical reasons. 

“I’m impressed, Mari.” He says, a little bit of warmth in his voice. “You’re surprisingly well-read on Arcacia and our history with them.”

I roll my eyes — a wasted action, I realize, since he can’t see me. “You’d be surprised at what I do in my free time.” 

“…Shopping, cleaning, eating, and exploring, you said?” 

I shrug. “Yeah. Surprised you remembered…no, wait, perfect memory, right?” 

“Yep. Mindscape.”

“I should try developing that, then…” I muse. “It seems useful…”

“Are you willing to meditate for months and months on end, spending hours a day training your mind?” 

“…Never mind.” 

He snickers. “Play to your strengths, Mari. You’re a very good meathead.” 

“I resent that.” I complain halfheartedly. He’s not wrong, though. I’m basically just a massive wrecking ball. Sure, I’ve learned to be decently stealthy, too, but that’s not really my strength. I’ve just learned enough to be passable. 

No, my strengths lie in hitting things really fast and hitting things really hard. So Yuki, intellectual researcher and strategist that he is, is perfect for leading me to where I need to go. 

He pats my head mockingly. “Well, you should—!”

A spark of electricity jumps between us, shocking him and eliciting a hiss of pain. 

“Are you okay?” I ask, worried. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah. It’s all good.”

It’s sometimes hard to remember that his electrocution defense is an active one, so I can still catch him off-guard with the sparks and jolts I tend to produce. I feel a little bad, but not too bad. His cold ass has been sitting on me for a good four or five minutes by now, after all. 

Speaking of which— 

“My back is growing numb.” I complain.

“So is my hand.” He retorts, but gets off me anyways. I roll over and stand, taking the opportunity to stretch.

_He purged the poison while sitting on me?_

“Anyways, what I meant to say before you distracted me was that I also like history, especially culture. I’ll even read books on it sometimes. Arcacia, being our biggest and closest neighbor, naturally came up.” 

“Huh.” He says, having the decency to sound interested. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“All the better to surprise people with.” I reply, a small grin on my face.

He nods. “So it is.” 

“Wanna head up?” I offer. “I’m kind of hungry...the usual place, maybe?”

“Sure.” He says, smiling softly at me.

_Thank you, Yuki. For all you’ve done._

_Now…I’ll return the favor. I’ll protect_ **_you_**.


	75. (3.8.2) Interlude 2, Chapter Sayaka

#  **3.8.2 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Interlude 2, Chapter Sayaka**

“Hey, Yuki. Gimme a favor.”

We’re standing on top of one of the cliffs overlooking the village, just the two of us. It’s a pretty nice day, if a little chilly, and I’d felt like taking a break from sparring for a bit. 

“What? Give you a favor? As in…ask you for a favor?”

“Yessir.” 

The Ice User raises an eyebrow, amused. “Now why should I do that, Sayaka?”

“…Cause you won’t regret it.” 

He stares at me, a contemplative look on his face. “This had better be good.”

“Trust me, it is.” 

“Alright, Sayaka. I’ll surrender a favor to you. What is it?” 

I smirk. Now we’re back to one-to-one, since I’d won and used a favor a few months back. I’m not tricking him, though. I think what I’m about to teach him, assuming he hasn’t figured it out himself — but based on our last few spars, he hasn’t —  _ will _ be something worth the favor. 

“I’m going to teach you a simple trick to enhance your ECQC.”

He stares at me blankly. 

“This had better be  _ real _ good.” 

I pout. “Have I ever led you astray, Yuki?” 

A small smirk flits across his face for just a moment. 

“Yes.” 

I roll my eyes. “But you’ve always benefited from it.” 

He frowns. “Are we counting the one time that you used a favor to put me in a maid outfit?” 

The memory elicits a grin from me. “But you looked so—“

“The favor, Sayaka?” He prompts me.

“Very well.” I say, grinning. “Shouldn’t take you more than…eh, two minutes to get it correctly?”

“You’re charging me a favor for two minutes of work? I served you in a dress for most of a day!”

“It’s punitive punishment for not figuring it out.” I say decisively. “You’ve had four months since the examination! It was  _ obvious _ , even.”

“Your mentor? Hikaru?”

I laugh. “Hikaru’s good, but she’s primarily a researcher and healer,  _ not _ a ninja. It’s not her speciality.” 

“Fair.” He acquiesces. “Who, then?”

I glance around briefly before leaning closer to him. “Can you keep a secret?”

The face he gives me makes me laugh. “Alright, well…does the name Daisuke Hirakaze mean anything to you?”

Yuki goes pale. “…Sayaka.”

“Yes?”

“You wouldn’t have happened to become acquaintances with the Wind Spellweaver of Alune, would you?”

I smirk. 

“I may have, Yuki. Actually, no, I haven’t. We’re a bit more than acquaintances, given that he’s my mentor and everything.”

“Mentor?” He asks. It looks like he’s still processing the information I’ve just given him.

“Yep. He was being his usual asshole self when he offered to apprentice me, so I told him to fuck off. After that he offered to be a mentor instead, so I said okay.”

The Ice User cringes. “You turned down an apprenticeship with a Wind Spellweaver…cause you didn’t like his attitude.” 

“Eh, yeah. You’ve got to meet the guy to understand.” 

A sudden breeze flutters between us. 

“What’cha talkin’ ‘bout, Saya?” An older voice says out of nowhere, causing Yuki to startle badly. I just roll my eyes, exasperated.

“Fuck you, old man. Like you don’t already know.” I say into the empty air.

“…What the hell?” Yuki asks eloquently. “Is this…ventriloquy?” 

“Yes.” I growl, annoyed. 

“But…how? And…is he  _ eavesdropping _ on us too!?”

“Yes.” 

“Through the wind…but, to have that kind of mastery… _ how _ ?!”

“Spellweaver.” I spit out. “Sorta comes with the territory.”

“Oops, am I interrupting your date? My bad, Saya.” 

“Void above, would you fuck off already?! And stop calling me that!” I snarl. With a burst of qi, I subjugate the air around us in a rough, rough mimicry of Turbulent Air and force his influence out. 

“There.” I pant, exhausted from the sheer power necessary to control any significant area of air. “That should keep him ou—“ 

“Silly Saya. That’s not nearly enough.” 

I gape as he easily pierces my makeshift space with literally zero discernible effort. Moments later, a sudden presence behind me makes me whirl around, only to meet his finger as it flicks against my forehead. 

“Yuki, right? A pleasure to meet you.” He says, bowing shortly. “Daisuke Hirakaze, at your service.” 

“Nice to meet you too.” The black-haired boy says cautiously. “Is there a particular reason you’ve chosen to grace us with your presence, Spellweaver?” 

I blink. It’s unusual to see Yuki being respectful to anyone, so to see him refer to Daisuke by his title…is just bizarre. Even if his actual language fails to be especially formal — it’s obvious that he isn’t used to it — it’s still…a decent attempt? Much more than I’d expected, at least.

“Ah, nothing much. I just wanted to see what Saya here was up to. It’s not every day she goes running off with a boy all by herself.” He pauses. “Well, that’s not really true, not with how much you guys have been hanging out. So I guess not. Geh, the youth of today. How immoral.” 

[Saya?] Yuki mouths at me, malicious glee on his face. 

_ Fuck you, Daisuke. _

“Tragic.” I say dryly. “Anyways, I’m teaching Yuki here about Air Blur.”

A short, slightly hysterical sound escapes the black-haired boy’s mouth for a brief moment before he’s able to clamp down on it.

[Air Blur.] He mouths disbelievingly. 

“Oh? Didn’t I teach you that a few weeks ago?”

“…Funny.” Yuki says, voice drier than the Great Lunarian Desert, “I could have sworn that Saya here had just been mocking me for not figuring it out.”

“Great, not you too with the stupid nickname…”

“Well, I can’t begin to speculate on her reasons…” Daisuke says, voice equally dry, “But she was right in saying that it isn’t hard at all. It just requires decent control and the ability to think outside of the box.” 

“I can do that.” Yuki says, shrugging. Seems like he’s realized formality is utterly unnecessary with Daisuke. 

“Right. Anyways, Saya says you use an ECQC style utilizing bursts of wind for power and sharp movement, right? In that case, this technique will suit you perfectly. It works alright for her, I suppose, but really, this kind of thing is exactly what you need.” 

“Color me interested.” 

“Alright. You two are familiar with the  _ stages of CQC _ , correct?”

“Yes.” We both reply. After all, that exact song and dance is what our own progression wound up following, after all. “Simple, reinforcement, elemental, elemental reinforcement.” 

Simple — Setsuna’s Academy level of CQC.

Reinforcement — Yuki’s Academy level of CQC and Setsuna’s current level of CQC (not that they’re necessarily equal, just that they’re on this fundamental level). 

Elemental — My Turbulent Air and Yuki’s Gale Stance (mine is so far beyond superior that it isn’t even funny. His stupid Gale Stance is just a rough mimicry of my technique, basically). 

Elemental Reinforcement — Mari’s Storm Cloak (and where my perfected Turbulent Air will rest). 

Each is a solid step above the rest, and trumps the one that comes before (although this is just a general rule, not a law). 

“Well, what dear Saya calls ‘Blurred Air’ or whatever is really just a simple add-on, so to speak. It slots under the Elemental category, as you might imagine. And well, what it does? Simple. Allow me to demonstrate.” 

In a blurred movement nearly too fast for me to track, he darts next to a tree and spin-kicks, utterly missing it. It’s not even close— 

But the tree still fractures under the blow, despite no visible impact. 

“That…doesn’t look altogether different from what I do. Compressed qi, burst to—“

“No. Look again. Look  _ properly _ , this time.” 

He repeats the motion, the wood splintering under the miss. Yuki’s eyes widen in surprise, then narrow.

“One more time?”

The tree shatters. 

“Oh…I see, your aura sort of…ruptures around the area, I guess. It’s like the qi bursting, but more natural. Less forced, rather. No…that’s not quite right — it’s like you’ve built a deficiency into the technique, and the wind follows the path of least resistance…? No wonder I couldn’t identify it at first, it isn’t even really a technique, more like…”

“Spellweaving?” I ask sarcastically. 

“…Well…yes. It must be hard to fight against that…it would be like predicting a flurry of embers leaping at you, or the path of falling water. You could do it, but you’d have to know it was coming first…and it’s so very subtle.”

“Correct.” Daisuke says, sounding for all the world like a simple schoolteacher. “But in battle, a sneaky trump card or ten is all you need. After all, you only need it to work once per person.” 

“I agree.” Yuki says simply. “Thank you, Spellweaver. Your assistance, I think, will prove to be invaluable.”

“Not going to work on it now?” He asks, looking interested.

“Nah. After all, Sayaka didn’t actually teach me the technique, you did. So she still owes me something. I’ll have her teach me how to refine the technique so I don’t waste more of your time.”

The old man looks amused. “If you say so. I’ll take my leave, then.” 

“Ugh.” I glower, the two ignoring me as they say their farewells.

…

“I like him.” Yuki says, a few moments after the man leaves.

“Of course you do.” I mutter sourly. He laughs at the expression on my face. 

“You’re just mad that he saved me a favor.”

“Whatever. Let’s get this done with. Try it out. Or do you need a demonstration?”

Yuki shakes his head. “No, not here. Let’s do it at my house. I think there’s a few…different ways I can apply this.”

_ Oh. He’s talking about his Ice aberration, isn’t he? _

_ Yesss. _

…

It’s always interesting to watch Yuki utilize his Ice, in the same way that it’s interesting to watch Mari call upon her Storm. They’re different, interestingly different. Fire, Water, Wind, Earth…I see them all the time, after all. To see something new, and more importantly, something far more  _ primal _ …

But it isn’t just that — at least, not with Yuki. Whenever he really channels his Ice — something I’ve only seen a handful of times — it’s, well, how do I explain it? Like there’s…an over-saturation of qi in the air? No, that’s not it. 

Raw, overwhelming power? But Yuki’s Ice manipulation, while effective, falls on the side of ‘precise’ rather than ‘powerful’. What, then?

“That’s quite the thoughtful look on your face.” He remarks, a trio of snowflake-shaped Ice shuriken in his hand. With a flick, he sends the projectiles at me, forcing me to dodge. Behind me, they hit the wall, coating it in a thin layer of frost. 

“Sorry.” I admit, rolling to my feet. “I think I’m a bit distracted.” 

“Clearly.” He shrugs, but powers down anyways. “What’s up?” 

“Everything that’s been going on.” I yawn. “I’ve been...hanging out with Setsuna, and she said something that kinda ticked me off. Kept me up a bit. And there’s other stuff I’m worried about, too.” 

“Oh? So that’s where she keeps going...” He muses. “I’ve been wondering about that.”

“W-Wait, you haven’t just  _ asked _ her?!”

He tilts his head. “No. Should I have?”

I groan. “That’s the other thing I’ve been worried about. Are you two...you know, okay? It’s been about three months, hasn’t it?”

“Huh? Where’s this coming from?” He frowns thoughtfully. “Our mission performance and synergy remains roughly about the same, and—”

“I don’t care about that!” I pause. “Well, I do, but that’s not what I’m talking about! It’s more along the lines of...I don’t know. You guys. Your bond. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“We are partners.” He agrees, looking confused. “What precisely are you—”

“What changed, Yuki? A little bit over two months ago...something shifted. I never thought to ask you what, because you seemed a bit happier, but it’s  _ changed _ you. What happened?” 

His face goes blank. “Nothing of real import. Anyways—”

I stare flatly at him. He trails off. 

“I...I care about you, Yuki. And I care about Setsuna. I don’t like to see you guys hurting. If there’s anything I can do to help...please just let me know, alright?” 

He has the decency to look a little guilty. “I...I will. But...at least for me, things are fine. So don’t worry about it, alright? Focus on taking care of her.” 

I stare at him for a moment, but can’t sense a lie. 

“If you say so, then I have no choice but to agree, right?” I ask helplessly. 

“Sometimes, Sayaka...” He leans back, exhaling. “That’s just how it is.” 


	76. (3.8.3) Interlude 2, Chapter Hikaru

#  **3.8.3 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Interlude 2, Chapter Hikaru**

“I’ve got some stuff about myself I should tell you.” I announce calmly to my favorite apprentice. 

“...You and everyone else, it seems...” He mutters under his breath. “What about?” 

_ Interesting. He quite evidently hasn’t completely patched things up with Setsuna, given that the girl’s still been avoiding me. A bit annoying, since that particular research was quite interesting, but it can’t be helped, I suppose. So, most likely...ah, the leash?  _

“Well, let’s talk after I give you your final boost.” 

_ That first day he’d walked in after his failed confession had been one of the scariest moments of my life, feeling the sharp decline in his life force. Thankfully, it was fixable, but... _

He holds out his hand, and I take it, bringing my Etheria to the surface. 

_ Heal him. _

The mental command sends the energy flowing between us, a tiny trickle of power. It takes a minute before I sense that I’ve given up enough Etheria, and cut the flow. 

“Feel better?”

“Much.” He admits, stretching. “I’m finally back to normal, it seems.”

“Good.” I sigh, relieved. “Let’s try to avoid doing anything like that again, shall we?”

“No promises.” He deflects. “Setsuna would have died without my direct intervention. I’m sorry, Hikaru, but I can’t let that happen.” 

I sigh. “Fair enough. Are you sure you won’t reconsider using that Etheria stockpile?” I poke him in the chest. 

“Not yet.” He shakes his head. “That being said, after that day I moved it to be...easier to access, so to speak. Had to write the seals myself. Have you ever tried to carve seals in your own mouth? I had to Veil that one.” 

I grimace. “Katsuo did that for me.”

“Gross.”

“On the topic, though...how close do you think I am to being able to reveal my Ice Aberration?”

“Mmm...” I’ve been putting some thought into this, as Yuki’s grown stronger and stronger. “Two months, perhaps? The fifth-star examination will roll around very soon, and I think you can pull a Mari and jump to provisional seventh.”

“Really?” He asks, surprised. “So soon?”

“If you train really hard for it.” I affirm. “For the last few months, you’ve been polishing your close-quarter combat and physical parameters. Those gains will in turn improve your incredible reinforcement and ECQC. When’s the last time you’ve seriously sparred with Mari?”

“Eh...a few days ago? But recently, I’ve stopped being able to beat her. She’s just become really strangely  _ clean _ all of a sudden. She had ridiculous reflexes before, but now it feels like she can’t be caught off-guard at all.”

“Hmm...” I muse. “She’s clearly made strides in detection and perception, then. Keep training against her, though. She’s the person who can best give you a challenge.”

“What about you and Katsuo?”

I shake my head. “I’m not a good person to spar with. And Katsuo’s style is a direct counter to yours.”

“Too hard to pierce?”

“Exactly. You’re a finesse fighter, mostly. You’ve got power, don’t get me wrong, but your real strengths lie in being an actual ninja. You’re more like Sayaka than Mari.”

“Though Sayaka’s a power fighter herself, now.” He notes dryly. 

I shrug unrepentantly. “Fine. You’re more like Setsuna than Mari.”

“Should I be working on power, then?”

“Nah. That’s what I’m teaching you Etheria for.” I glare at him seriously. “You don’t need to be an overwhelming hurricane. Just be there at the right time to use that strength of yours, and you can inflict far more damage than someone straightforward like Mari can.” 

He nods. “I understand.” 

...

A few days later, I meet up with him again to help him continue to refine his Aberration control. 

“So the main elements of your Ice aberration style now are as such; defense, healing, elemental materialization,  _ permafrost _ , and  _ crystallization _ , correct?” I ask.

“Yes, that seems about right.” Yuki confirms. We’re sitting in my own basement chambers, Sayaka along for the ride. Apparently she’s as interested as I am in figuring out just what Yuki’s capable of.

“Hm…interesting. Alright. So you have a precision-attrition style, aiming to wear down the opponent until they make a mistake.”

Yuki nods. “Basically, yes, using the latter two concepts to make small mistakes damaging or even fatal, and poison to add extra lethality and utility. The attrition style works really well with that.” 

“Your style has one major weakness, though.” 

“People who can heal off the wounds I inflict or can otherwise negate my Ice, right?” 

“Yep. Exactly that. What are your plans to counter them?”

He smiles, and not in a good way. “Properties of blood.”

_ Properties of—  _

“Oh my.” I breathe out. “That…yes, that would...not on me, obviously, but on any typical individual…?”

“What?” Sayaka asks, confused enough to interject. 

“The composition of blood has a significant water component.” I say absently. “He’ll freeze their blood.” 

The blunette’s face goes white. 

“A…Ah.” She croaks, eyes wide. “I…see.” 

“How fast could you do it? No, couldn’t they just pulse their qi fast enough to melt the Ice? You’d have to fight against their body temperature and natural heat, but—“ 

Yuki shakes his head. “It isn’t anything like that. Here, look—“ 

Face utterly blank, he slaps one arm to the forearm of his other, gripping it tight for a moment. Then  _ ice spikes _ rip out from his flesh, splattering blood everywhere that freezes before it hits the ground.

I flinch. 

“That.” The Aberrant says, voice calm, “That’s the threat.” 

“W…What the hell—“ Sayaka whimpers, voice strangled. “You just — your  _ arm _ —“ 

“Huh?” He asks, Ice dissolving away into nothingness as healing qi wraps around his wounds, holding the blood in even as his aberration works to heal himself. “This is nothing.”

“You just — Void above — you just ripped apart your own arm for a demonstration—“ 

He shrugs. “I mean…I’ve cut my arm off before in the name of research. This isn’t anything at all.” 

“That isn’t  _ normal _ .” Sayaka spits out. “That isn’t something you should be accustomed to!”

“Normal?” The Ice User asks, bemused. “I’ve never been anything like that.” 

“I—“ The blunette grits her teeth. “That isn’t what I meant.” She moves forward, taking hold of his arm. 

“Look, see?” He asks, still confused. “It’s all better.” 

In response, Sayaka slaps him across the face. I almost —  _ almost _ — move to intervene, but something holds me back. The Ice User doesn’t even flinch.

“Don’t say stupid things like that.” She clenches her fists. “I don’t…Yuki, I don’t want to get used to sights like that. Please. Don’t hurt yourself like that unless you really have to.” 

“…Why?“ 

“Because it hurts to watch you get hurt,  _ idiot! _ ” 

Yuki stares, dumbfounded, as the Wind Mistress blinks tears out of her eyes.

“…Oh.” 

Her words trigger something within me. A sense of deja vu, long since ignored…

“I’m sorry, Sayaka.” He says. Despite his still-quizzical expression, he at least does look and sound vaguely apologetic. 

She sighs. “Look, I just...I just don’t like seeing you hurt? Least of all when you do it to yourself. I care about you, alright?”

“But I—“

“A favor.” Sayaka cuts him off coldly. “As a favor. I’m using one, Yuki. Well, my last one. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

I don’t know what this favor is or why it’s so important to Yuki, but he stiffens nonetheless, expression growing annoyed.

“That’s such a waste!” He protests.

“Not to me.” She replies softly.

He stares at her for a moment longer. “Why are you so insistent on this? It does nothing to benefit you. At all.”

“...You think so, don’t you?” Sayaka whispers. “Maybe I’ve changed, Yuki. Maybe I’ve changed from that person I used to be.”

Unexpectedly, his face softens.

“I know you have, Sayaka. I know you’ve grown.” He smiles slightly. “Keep your favor.”

I get the idea that I’ve accidentally intruded on a moment perhaps meant to be private. In my defense, though, they chose to have it right in front of me, and I couldn’t escape without them noticing. Standing here as an unintended voyeur seemed to be the best course of action.

“...Well. If you insist.” The blunette says, injecting some forced humor into the situation. “I will, then.”

An awkward silence follows.

“Glad we’ve figured that out.” I say slowly. “Anyone in the mood for tea?”

The pair send a dry glare at me. Ironically, this serves to raise my spirits.

_ If their argument hasn’t made them too angry to cooperate with one another, it can’t have ended that badly. That’s good, right? _

“In that case, back to analyzing your style, Yuki…” 

...

“Hey, Katsuo?” I murmur, much later. In an arrangement that’s been typical for years, I’m nestled against his side, basking in his warmth.

“Yes, Hikaru?” 

“I’m sorry.”

“For?”

I don’t respond, fast asleep.

  
  



	77. (3.8.4) Interlude 2, Chapter Setsuna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Broke the pattern a little bit. We're starting from the day after for this chapter, and time passes quickly throughout. From what you know of the other chapters, you should be able to get an approximation of the timeline of this one.

#  **3.8.4 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Interlude 2, Chapter Setsuna**

I stare into the mirror. My reflection stares back, a sad smile on its face. 

...

“G-Good morning, Yuki.” 

He glances at me, then glances away. “Good morning, Setsuna.” 

I know that he’d left after a few hours, apparently unable to sleep — I get that. I’d felt the same, myself. But I’m used to sleepless nights, and I didn’t want to pry into the reason he couldn’t. It was fairly obvious, anyways…

Guilt surges through me. 

“Uh, today…today I’m going to sleep over at Sayaka’s.” 

“O-Oh. Okay.” 

I ruthlessly stamp down on the panic that begins welling up from inside. This isn’t about me, and I don’t want to make it about me. Not when I know Yuki’s hurting, when he’ll let himself. If he’ll let himself. 

…

“How was it?” I ask. 

“Pretty good.” He admits, without going into further detail. He does look marginally more relaxed, if anything, although I don’t want to think too hard about the reasons why. 

“I’ll head over tomorrow night, too.” 

I nod, clamping down on the words that want to spill out.

_I miss you. I don’t sleep well without you. Please come back to me._

But I can’t say anything like that. 

_Move out of his house, then. Stop sleeping with him. You can’t make him live with you with that kind of proximity, always having him wonder ‘what if?’, never giving him the chance to get over you. If you really care about him, give him the space to move on!_

I’m not willing to leave again. But it’d be wrong to ask for anything more than that.

_I’m too scared that he’d really let me go, this time._

…

It’s obvious that Sayaka and Mari know what’s going on. I struggle to meet the latter’s eyes, all too conscious of how she feels about what I’ve done to him. She apologizes a few days later, sounding genuinely remorseful, and I tonelessly accept it and make empty apologies of my own, but…she isn’t _wrong_ , and even if she’s sorry for hurting my feelings, she isn’t sorry for the words she’s said. 

And they’re not wrong. Not wrong at all. 

Sayaka, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to know how to approach me. It doesn’t seem like she’s able to make sense of my motivations, and plays cautiously around us, at least at first. 

…

“He’s at her house again, huh…?” 

The bed feels a lot emptier without him in it. In a moment of weakness, I cross the invisible line we’ve both made for ourselves, bury my face in his pillow, and breathe in his scent. 

It’s a terrible idea, I know, but at that moment, it’s the only thing I can do to hold the fear and anxiety swelling up within me, no matter how temporary.

...

I learn to perfect my poker face as Sayaka begins subtly, but deliberately flirting with Yuki, oftentimes in front of me. It goes over his head, for the most part, since it isn’t too different from the way she normally teases him, but I don’t doubt that he’ll realize…eventually.

Will he move out, if she asks? Would he leave me all alone? 

_It hasn’t even been a week. How am I going to handle the rest of my life?_

…

“You’re getting sloppy, Setsuna.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” 

“Is there anything you’d like to talk about?” Katsuo crosses his arms, putting aside his ink pen.

“No, sir. I’ll do better.” 

Grey eyes stare into my own. 

“If you say so.” 

It’s an important reminder to kill my heart as much as I’m able to, on mission and training time. The last thing I need is to become a liability…or, worse, get someone killed. 

I’d never forgive myself. 

…

Seven days after the confession, two things change. 

Yuki begins meditating far more frequently than usual. He’s evasive about the reason why, only saying that he’s developing more control over his mindscape. 

At the same time, he stops avoiding me. 

…

“Morning, Setsuna.” He says cheerfully, slipping into the bathroom. 

“Good…morning?” I say, bewildered. 

I’m not sure what to make of his reversal in attitude. 

_Maybe Sayaka confessed to him, and—_

Frowning, I throw myself into my work. 

…

It soon becomes obvious that nothing much has changed between Yuki and Sayaka. I try not to be too obviously relieved. 

…

“Be more careful, Setsuna!” He grabs my hand in his, turning it to expose the bloody laceration on the palm. 

“S-Sorry.” 

He shakes his head, bringing his qi to the surface. The gentle winter breeze of his healing energy washes over my palm, sealing the cut with ease. For a moment, his thumb brushes against where the wound was, before he pulls his hand away, looking a little embarrassed. 

My heart skips a beat, but I don’t say anything. 

…

Two weeks after the confession, we go on a short mission. Thankfully, our teamwork isn’t affected, and so long as I keep a careful check on my emotions, I find that I’m able to maintain my focus. 

…

Twenty days in, something shifts abruptly. 

“Good morning, Setsuna.” 

“Good morning, Yuki.” 

I study his expression. It seems…strangely natural, like how it used to be. He’s not avoiding my gaze like he used to, nor obviously overcompensating in an attempt to pretend like things are normal. No…it feels…right? But…

_But why does it feel so…wrong?_

“Something up?” He asks, turning away to begin getting ready. 

_Yes._

“No.”

“Okay.” He says, unconcernedly. 

A seed of unease takes root in my chest.

He stops his intense meditation sessions shortly after. 

…

A few days later, I fracture my shin in a spar with him. 

“Hm…a simple break, thankfully. Easy to heal…” 

Once again, his qi presses into me, repairing the bone with ease. 

“All better.” He says, letting go and standing up, flashing a small smile at me.

And it’s then I realize—

_Oh._

It feels detached. Everything about his demeanor feels detached. As if he’s under the Veil, yet he’s not. So all of this is…this is natural. 

I make an excuse to end the session and leave, unable to look him in the eyes as fear blossoms in my trembling heart. 

…

That becomes the new normal. He treats me with a certain level of professional detachment that never existed before. He’s still warm in his treatment of me, but it somehow feels false at the same time. Sayaka and Mari don’t seem to notice, or if they do, they never bring it up in front of me. 

The old fears ignite, anxiety clawing at my chest, and this time, they’re not so easily ignored. 

…

“Yo, Setsuna…” Mari corners me one day. “Are you okay? You’ve seemed…kind of off, recently.”

“I’m fine.” 

She stares at me sadly. “It’s about Yuki, isn’t it? Are you two okay now? I can’t ask him that, because I know he won’t have noticed anything, but…” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Are you really?”

“I’m. Fine.” 

“…Alright.”

Sayaka watches, a frown on her face. 

…

On one such night, I’m forced to leave the house to escape, and I come to find that alcohol serves as a surprisingly good way to drown everything out, to fill the void in my heart. Knowing how much Yuki dislikes the practice, I actively hide it from him, but…to be honest, I’m not even sure if he’d care or not anymore. 

…

“Alright, teammate, let’s go out and do something!” Sayaka wraps her arm around me. 

“W-What?” 

“You and me. What do you like to eat? Ramen? Ramen sounds good. Let’s go eat some ramen, alright?” 

Sayaka takes my hand in hers and physically drags me over to a ramen stand against my protests. Once I sit down — once she makes me sit down — I don’t have it in me to just leave. 

_Although that’s mostly motivated by the fact that I’d have to see her again tomorrow, and she would probably be rather displeased._

But to my surprise, I actually…actually find that I’m enjoying myself. Sayaka is an attentive conversationalist, deftly avoiding potentially dangerous topics while encouraging me to open up on other things entirely. The silences are comfortable and listening to Sayaka ramble about one thing or another proves to be…well, rather nice. 

“Let’s do this again next week, alright?” 

“I…okay.” 

And when she leaves, I’m surprised to realize that the coldness in my chest has been replaced with a bit of warmth.

…

My weekly outings with Sayaka continue. We do lots of things — eating, shopping, walking around mindlessly, exploring the town — and she makes it really fun. My dislike of her rapidly wanes — it’s impossible to be angry with her when she’s so much fun to be around. 

But eventually, I have to ask—

“Why are you doing this, Sayaka?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Are you…just trying to get my approval or something? Because you don’t have to do that.” 

“The hell? No!” The blunette glares at me. “I’m hanging out with you because you’re fun to be around!” 

“…I am?” 

The girl sighs. 

“We’ve been doing this for two months now, haven’t we? Have you been thinking that this whole time?”

I don’t respond. 

“Damn it, Setsuna.”

“…Sorry…” I mumble, feeling ashamed of myself. 

“No, I get it.” She shakes her head. “I’m a little upset, I won’t lie, but I can see why you might have thought that. Look, I don’t want Yuki to get in the way of our friendship, alright? Even if I were to start…dating him, that isn’t something I’d rub in your face. Not at all. I…fuck, how do I explain this? I like you, Setsuna. I’m not trying to hurt you.”

“Oh.”

She smiles crookedly. “And if giving you some time with Yuki will help you, then I don’t mind sharing a little.”

I flush violently. “W-What?!” 

She winks. “Food for thought.” 

I try not to overthink her words, or think much of them at all, but there’s a knot in my chest that unwinds a little. 

…

It’s been six months since Yuki confessed to me, and everything has changed. I don’t know whether or not he’s consciously aware of it, but I’ve certainly felt the differences in our interactions. 

His touches no longer linger. Affectionate, yes, but not — they’re all brushes, rather than intimate caresses. Simple interactions that would make me blush before have been reduced to…like they’re meant to reassure me that everything’s okay. Reassurances. 

He doesn’t seem to go out of his way to talk to me anymore. Not that I blame him, but...

He almost never initiates hugs anymore. And he’s always, _always_ the first to pull away, now.

He doesn’t come home every night anymore. Sometimes he’s with Sayaka, sometimes he’s with Mari, sometimes he’s with Hikaru. He still tells me whether or not he’s coming home — usually — but…

When…if we sleep together, that stubborn gap between us persists. He doesn’t hold me to him anymore, and I’ve never had the courage to try bridging that particular gap—

“Are you alright, Setsuna?” 

I blink, pulled from my thoughts as his voice reaches my ears from somewhere behind me. 

“Ah. Yes. Is something wrong?” I force the words out as neutrally as possible, turning just enough to glance at him from the corner of my eye.

He shrugs. “You just felt a little…off, I suppose. Lost in thought.” He walks up closer. “You don’t usually stare into the mirror.” 

“I’m fine, Yuki. Thanks.” 

The Ice User nods, drifting off to another part of the house.

The thing he’s done…it’s like there’s a line between us, a wall that he absolutely will not cross. A boundary that says clearly that we’re simply friends, with no hint at all of anything further. 

All those gestures before, things I realize now that I took for granted…gestures that, maybe, had some level of romantic intent behind them, or at least let me know that there was something that connected us beyond simple friendship. I recognize all those signs now, signs that he’d…he’d…

I slump a little, assured that he’s gone for the moment.

I doubt he’s even noticed the small smile that makes its way to his face whenever he writes a note to Sayaka via the communication scroll. Or the way a little bit of light makes its way to her eyes whenever she talks to him. Or about him, even. Maybe he hasn’t noticed yet, how their feelings have subtly changed, but the Wind Mistress must have. And unlike…unlike me, she doesn’t…she doesn’t have a reason to say no. 

Or, perhaps, they’re already—? 

“It’s not my concern.” I whisper to myself. 

_“If you really don’t like him as you say, then…well, you shouldn’t have any objections. Sayaka’s a good girl, and a formidable ninja in her own right. So don’t interfere. It’s not your concern, anyways.”_

_“You know what’s best for him, and you still choose otherwise…?”_

Mari…Mari was…she was right. If I really want to help Yuki, I should just…let him be happy, right…? Even if…? 

I swallow heavily.

_Right. That’s the choice I made, after all. I hurt him too much. So…pulling away from him is the best I can do for him._

For a moment, his words echo through my mind. 

_“Why are you a ninja? What do you want out of it? What do you want your future to be?”_

I just want to stay with you, Yuki. 

_But you don’t really need me anymore, do you?_

Wandering out of the bathroom, I come out to the living room...then pause, glancing at the door. 

_Then...then maybe it’s better to just..._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter's going to be a big one, folks.


	78. (3.8.5) Interlude 2, Chapter Yuki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the single longest chapter to date and weighs in at 7,600+ words.

#  **3.8.5 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Interlude 2, Chapter Yuki**

“You know, Yuki…” Hikaru had told me once, back when I’d told her of the results of my failed confession, “Why is it that you’re so in love with Setsuna?”

“What?” I’d asked, confused. “I don’t know. It’s…it’s Setsuna.” 

She’d given me one of those patented dry looks of hers. 

“But _why_?” 

I hadn’t known how to answer her, then. She’d gotten me to really think about it, and the following days of reflection had made me realize:

_I really didn’t know Setsuna as well as I thought I did._

That’d led me to the realization that, perhaps, I hadn’t been as ready to confess as I’d thought I did. That it’d been perhaps a little harder to do it properly than I’d thought it was. And _that_ , in turn, had led me to do some more thinking of my own. Some reflection on myself. On who I am. And eventually, I came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t have said anything to Setsuna at all. Well, obviously, based on the results. But even without that hindsight, confessing had been a mistake. 

_You’re a ninja, idiot. An Ice Aberrant, even. What do you think you’re doing?_

Even then, though, the feelings had remained. They just…wouldn’t leave. So I sealed them off with my Ice aberration. I spent a few weeks meditating, developing the requisite control over my mindscape…then I’d just locked them away, along with a handful of other memories. It became a lot easier to look her in the eye after that.

Oh, I still think — and know — that she’s the reason for my existence. That she’s why I’m alive. And I still care about her. I just don’t feel any of those irritating side-emotions for her any longer. It’s made things far, far better — I’ve been able to sleep soundly since then, for one. 

Setsuna was fine after the first few weeks, too. She’s been a bit weird around me recently, but I’m not going to ask. Her business is her own.

“Hey, Setsuna.” I call out, poking my head into the room she’s in. She looks lost in thought. “I’ll be heading out.” 

There’s a short pause before she answers. “To Sayaka’s house, right? Are you…staying over again?”

“Mmm…” I hum thoughtfully. “Not sure. Probably, though.” 

“Ah. Alright, see you...later.” 

I wave in her direction. “See you.”

Recently, I’ve noticed something strange about Setsuna. Compared to the Setsuna I remember in my memories, this one...

_She doesn’t smile as much as she used to._

_..._

“See? It’s nice to just relax once in a while, right?” Mari yawns, laying across the sofa. 

“I suppose so.” I say noncommittally. 

We’re both relaxing in Sayaka’s house — the blunette’s currently meeting with Hikaru for more training. Setsuna, as usual, is busy working on seals, leaving the two of us with little to do but rest or train.

Mari chose the former for me via paralysis when I suggested the latter. Apparently she’s fine with taking breaks every once in a while. Equally apparent is her interest in making sure I wind down once in a while, too. I don’t really get it — of the four of us, I train the least, even if only marginally. Therefore, I have the most free time anyways. 

Unless, of course, you count the usage of Heavy Wind to continuously improve my physical abilities...in which case I’m training nearly continuously. After over half a year of running the technique, my ability to multitask has skyrocketed. Equally beneficial is the fact that I’ve been growing fairly strong, which has allowed me to divert time I would have put into physical training into qi training instead. Mari’s still stronger and faster than me at a base level, but the gap has sharply closed. I can legitimately push her in an unarmed CQC fight, something I couldn’t have hoped to do even a month ago.

“Hey, Yuki, mind if I ask you something?” 

“Huh?” I ask, shaken out of my thoughts. 

“You know about my problem with shocking people I touch, right?”

I level her a flat look. “Obviously. I’ve been giving you hugs for a while now, haven’t I?”

Ignoring my retort, she meets my eyes. “Yuki, if I asked you to fuck me, what would your response be?”

I choke on my spit.

“W-What?”

_No, wait, calm down. This is obviously related to her problems with touching people. Craving intimacy, maybe. No, that’s almost certainly it, right?_

She smiles slightly at my reaction, and tilts her head. Briefly, I contemplate the possibility that Mari is romantically interested in me.

_No. You wouldn’t push a romantic interest towards your romantic rivals the way she has. She cares about me, but that’s all. Physical attraction? There’s definitely more attractive individuals out there, male and female. This is about the fact that I can touch her without getting hurt._

_Right, her control over her Storm slackens as she grows increasingly more relaxed, which is why casual contact is generally alright but properly intimate contact isn’t. And sex is about as intimate as you can get, physically._

_So if her casual shocks are a mild annoyance and her intimate shocks are particularly painful…_

_Oh. The possibility of her really hurting her partner. Yeah, that would do it. In that case, her available sexual partners are near-zero. Only someone who could outright negate her qi via certain aberrations — Katsuo — or someone like me, who can negate weak qi outright via Etheria. Well, Mari’s not weak by any means, but her intent is. She’s not trying to shock me. That in turn makes it weak enough for me to block._

Idly, I let my eyes flicker up and down Mari’s body. She raises an eyebrow at me, not backing down.

_She’s certainly attractive enough. I have no problems, at least. Nor am I romantically interested in her. She’s a good friend. We could probably handle it, then._

_Hm. There’s a problem._

“Now?” I ask. 

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to be your first. Give that to someone you love.”

Huh. Wouldn’t have expected that attitude out of Mari. Well, I appreciate the thought, I suppose. 

“Well, that works out. I wouldn’t be able to do it now, anyways.”

“Wouldn’t?”

“Yeah. Your ability to control yourself decreases as you grow more relaxed. What happens when I’m inside you and you orgasm?”

“Confident, huh?” Mari says coyly, before she registers the implications. “Ah. Fuck. Forgot about that.”

“We’d both be.” I agree.

“Huh?”

“Because I’d be hurt, and you’d be...”

“That’s terrible.” She puts her face in her palms, groaning. 

“Anyways, I will be strong enough to handle it, but probably not quite yet. And I’ll probably have to learn how to make that effect passive, too, given how distracted I’ll be. It shouldn’t kill me if I make a mistake thanks to my passive regeneration, but I’d rather not risk it, you know?”

“Right.” Mari agrees, looking a bit uncertain.

“Other than that, though? I don’t have any objections.”

“Then…if you’re sure…” She smiles, a small genuine expression of joy. “Thanks, Yuki.”

...

“Well, you’ve mastered most of what I had to teach you about Etheria.” Hikaru announces.

“Already?” I ask, blinking.

She shrugs. “Honestly, I haven’t found much you _can_ do with it. You’ve mastered conversion. You’re able to manipulate it freely. Your indirect healing is impeccable. You’d already figured out how to temporarily empower yourself with it. All there’s left to do is learn absorption, but, well, you’re a long way from that. Well, that and your _interesting_ problem with Mari, but that’s just something you’ll have to practice.”

I make a face at her, but nod. “Perhaps there’s more to discover about my abilities that we just haven’t found?”

“Oh, I’m sure there is.” She nods sagely. “After all, Etheria is effectively the manifestation of your soul. It will probably evolve as you grow more.”

I grimace. “I’d rather just know everything now so I can master it.”

Hikaru shrugs. “Careful about experimenting, Yuki. If you make another mistake with your soul, even I might not be able to save you.”

I wince, thinking about the time I’d crushed my mindscape. Had my mental control not been as good as it was, I would have died. 

“I’ll be safe.” I assure her.

The researcher sighs, taking a sip of her tea. “Hurry up and get strong, Yuki. Then you can get bored with being a ninja and join me in researching.”

“Hmm.” I’m perfectly aware that I’ll be a ninja for as long as Setsuna is. I’d never leave her alone to do this kind of thing by herself.

“Pleaseee? Sayaka isn’t interested in research and none of my apprentices are talented or driven enough to do anything really interesting.”

I blink. “You’ve got other apprentices?”

She gives me a dry look. “Obviously. What do you think I do all day?”

“Well...research? Work at the hospital?”

“...Yes, but…I do stuff besides that.” She trails off lamely. “Like...train apprentices. That’s why I pulled you and Sayaka onboard in the first place, you know? I look for gifted students.”

“...I thought your other apprentices weren’t talented?”

“Better than average isn’t great.” She says decisively. “They’re talented...but not like you and Sayaka. They’ll be the best in their groups or whatever, but you two are going to be something else. Sayaka has the potential to be the youngest Spellweaver in centuries.”

“And me?” I ask curiously.

She stares at me. “In you, Yuki, I saw enough potential to bind my soul.”

“…I-I see.”

When I’d thought of the Blood Vow I shared with Hikaru, I’d always thought of the ramifications on _my_ side. I’d be binding _my_ soul to Hikaru. What would that mean? What would that bring me? What could that cost me?

And once I’d sworn it, I’d basically forgotten about it. It was the formalization of our apprenticeship and it allowed Hikaru to trust me enough to let me in on her deepest secrets.

For some reason, I’d never thought that she, too, had been trusting _me_ with her soul, too. Well, sort of. More like she’s allowed me to put a shackle around her soul the same way my own Blood Vow has done around mine — not that I’ve ever been bothered by it, anyways.

Heedless of my thoughts, she continues on. “Even without your Ice Aberration, I might have bound to you. Your conversation with Sayaka in the library caught my interest, sure, and getting called in to clean up your mess at the South Academy after kept it, but all of my potential apprentices have done things like that. No, what really makes you different is that, over time, I was able to nurture that spark of _curiosity_ within you. You started to wonder about the nature of qi, about _why_ things were. And you started to work towards that. You spent hours in the library every week _learning_. And even now, you’re still wondering. I respect that, Yuki.” She tilts her head. “I respect you. I care about you. That, and everything else, that’s why I made the Vow to you.” 

I nod. “Thank you…Hikaru.”

The medic smiles. “No…thank you, Yuki.” 

...

The walk to Sayaka’s house is short and uneventful. In fact, she’s waiting on the roof, lazily throwing out a hand in greeting as I approach.

“Hey.” She yawns, stretches. “I’m ready to go, I suppose.”

“Sounds good. Ready for another four hours of sitting and doing nothing?” 

The Wind Mistress groans as she jumps down and lets me into her house. “I suppose so. It’s been, what, three months or so since I’ve started this?”

I shrug, unsympathetic. “It took me ten. Seven just to detect anything at all. You said you thought you felt something the last time, right? So you’re making more progress than I had, already.” 

“That’s true.” She admits. “It’s just a little frustrating to be this slow at learning something. I’m normally a lot better than this.”

Based on her progress, I estimate that she’ll be able to construct her avatar in perhaps another month or so of work. Of course, that’s a wild guess bordering on outright speculation — I’m certainly no expert — but having laboriously gone through the process before, I’m able to give her tips and more importantly help guide her meditation.

Wind Users are naturally free and flighty, making it a bit harder to meditate. Sayaka, a pure Wind User, finds it particularly challenging to meditate without someone helping to focus her. By performing a role similar to the one Setsuna did for me, back in the day — relaxation and comfort — I’m able to calm her down enough for her to slip into a trance. She’s gotten much better at getting into it herself, but still needs my help most of the time. 

“Well, too bad. You can’t be good at everything.”

Her lips twitch into a smile. “Just watch me.”

“Oh, that’s right...where did you guys go last night? I’ve been thinking about trying out some new food places — _besides ramen_ — and was wondering if you had any suggestions.” 

“Huh?” Sayaka asks, eyes widening. “We didn’t do anything last night.”

“You didn’t?” I frown. “Then...she told me...”

“Uh oh. Trouble in paradise?” She asks sardonically.

I hum noncommittally. “How many times have you guys gone out at night together this last month?”

“Two.”

“...Great. Thanks.” I get up to leave, irritated that I’ve missed this for so long. 

“Wait, Yuki! Just how many times did she tell you that she was with me this month?” Sayaka calls out as I stride away. 

I glance back over my shoulder.

“Six.” 

_Just what has she been hiding from me? Well, maybe I should just...no, this is too much. She’s lying to me about this, so she doesn’t want me to know. In that case..._

…

“I need a favor.”

“What is it?”

“Daisuke Hirakaze.” 

...

“You called, boy?”

“I have a favor to ask of you, Spellweaver.”

“Interesting...just what is this favor?”

“I need you to track a scent for me.” I hand the spellweaver a crumpled shirt. 

“So you’re aware of the upper limits of the element, hm...? Interesting. My cost...will be to consume that favor of yours that Sayaka owes you.”

“...If I might ask, why?”

“Because then I’ll have something to hold over her.” 

“...Heh. If that is your wish, then I accept.” 

“Right. Be back down here in five.”

...

I move through the streets, a qi-suppression seal active on my shoulder underneath my clothes. If Setsuna had intended to hide this place from me, then she might run if she detects me. Thankfully, between my own abilities at detecting qi and the precise coordinates that Daisuke Hirakaze traced the scent to, it shouldn’t come to that.

_Perhaps this location might give me some clues as to the way she’s been acting recently...?_

As it turns out...it’s a bar. A civilian bar, at that. 

_Just what are you doing in here, Setsuna?_

I step in without hesitation, my eyes scanning the area. I don’t see a familiar head of black hair, but I can detect the faintest trace of her aura.... _there._

Though the woman in question has long red hair, I can tell that it’s Setsuna from her frame and posture. The disguise is pretty lazy, thankfully, or I might have glanced by without another thought. She’s sitting at the bar, a glass of beer in her hand. Without hesitation, she throws the whole mug back. 

I narrow my eyes.

...

“Evening.” I announce, sitting down next to her. She glances at me out of the corner of her eye, then flinches, eyes widening in recognition. 

“I—” 

“I’m glad to see that you aren’t as drunk as you look. What are you doing here?”

“Why did you follow me?”

“Why did you hide this from me?” I retort.

She glances away. “None of your business.” 

I rear back, surprised at the poorly-hidden anger in her voice. She flinches, turning to look at me with wide eyes. 

“I...that’s not how I meant...” She shakes her head, then quickly slips off of her stool and flees from the bar. 

“Tch...!” I chase after her, reaching up to deactivate the seal on me as I do so.

_Damn it, come back here!_

I get out in time to see her leap away onto a nearby roof, red wig sealed away. Cursing, I chase after her. 

“We need to talk, Setsuna!” 

“Go away!” She redoubles her efforts to get away, beelining towards — our house!? Although I’m reasonably confident that I could catch her if I tried, doing so would cause a pretty significant disturbance, and the last thing I want to do is draw the attention of the patrol. At least she seems to be of the same mind, and isn’t breaking out any qi. 

Soon enough, our house is in our sights. She slips past the ward line—

I almost crash straight into the wards as they spring up, the blue barriers locking me out. 

“Setsuna, what the hell!?” 

“I don’t want to talk to you right now.” She says sharply. “Leave me alone!”

_Underneath those words, though...I can detect...hurt?_

But that is overthrown by my own irritation with the situation.

“Fine.” I turn away. “I’m going to go stay over at Sayaka’s. Good night.”

Behind me, the wards go down. Shaking my head, I keep walking.

“I...I’m sorry.” Setsuna whispers, so softly that I can barely hear her. But I _can_ hear her nonetheless, so I stop. 

“For what? Lying to me repeatedly? For locking me out of my own house?” I turn to face her. “For getting drunk by yourself in a place like that? I needed help to find you there. If something happened to you...then what? I don’t want you to get hurt, but if you do things like that...and you won’t tell me _why?”_

Setsuna averts her gaze.

“...Maybe we just need to spend some time away from each other.” I shake my head. “You’ve been unhappier recently, haven’t you been? Maybe...maybe this will help you. And maybe the distance will give you the time you need...to talk to me. Sometimes it feels like you don’t trust me anymore...but I don’t know _why_. Either way, though? It has to be you. I can’t make you talk to me, Setsuna, so...you know what? Whenever you’re ready, you come find me, alright? I’ll wait. I’ll wait as long as it takes.” I start walking away, hoping that I’ll hear something from her. That I’ll hear that she wants me to stay. 

She doesn’t say anything, and so I keep walking. 

...

“You look unhappy, Yuki.” Hikaru notes. “Does this have something to do with why you had Daisuke Hirakaze run a scent trace on Setsuna?”

“As observant as ever, Master.” I say bitingly, then pause. “Sorry. I’ve been—”

“A bit stressed, I know.” Hikaru agrees. “And you’re still getting used to keeping your Veil down as much as possible. Consider it like puberty, in a sense. You’re still learning how to handle all of these emotions. To be frank, I’m surprised it’s been as smooth as it’s been, so far.” 

_What an interesting way to put it. She’s not wrong, though._

“Would you like to talk about it, Yuki? I’ve found that such things help, and that even if I can not offer a solution for you, I can at least offer another perspective.” 

“Maybe later.” I deflect. She shakes her head, sighing. 

“Well, I tried. On that note, though, I do have an offer for you. Whether or not you’d like to take it is completely up to you.”

“What is it?”

“As things stand, you are...” Hikaru hums thoughtfully, “Perhaps a month or so out from being at the seventh-star level. The minimum level I told you was necessary to reveal your Aberration. Of course, that’s a month of seriously intense training. I do not believe you can get the kind of training you will need here — not at the level you require. So, Yuki, my offer. I am willing to take you into the nearby mountain ranges for one month, and we will train there.”

“...When do we leave?”

She raises an eyebrow. “You accept, then?”

I nod. “It’s as good a time as any.”

She hums thoughtfully. “A few days, then. Get your affairs in order and we’ll head out. I need to finish some stuff up at the hospital in preparation for my departure.”

...

“Uh, you _are_ planning on telling Setsuna, right?”

“Of course I am.” I scowl at Mari. “It’s just...well, things have been really awkward lately. And I practically told her that I wouldn’t talk to her until she was ready to open up to me.”

“Just checking.” She placates. “Well...what if she doesn’t talk to you in the days before you leave, then?”

I wince. “I...that, I’m not sure of. Sayaka’s been happy enough to let me stay over, but I don’t wish to impose on her.” 

Thankfully, Mari realizes that I’m being serious and doesn’t make any jokes about it. “I don’t think she really minds. She’s probably lonely, given how far away she lives from the rest of us. And she doesn’t live with anyone either, so all the more so. Your visiting is probably welcome to her.”

“If you say so...” I mutter, unconvinced. “Still, that leaves me with the current problem.”

“One of many...” She mutters. “In that case, perhaps I’ll tell her? It might drive her to talk to you, right?”

I rub my eyes. “That’s fine, then. But make sure you mention that you’re delivering the message from me. I don’t want her to think that I don’t care about her.”

“Sure.”

“Thanks, Mari.”

“No problem, Mas—er, captain.” 

...

I spend another day with Sayaka, hoping that I’ll hear a knock, Setsuna’s voice, and that we’ll be able to resolve this. 

It doesn’t come.

“Am I that bad to be around?” Sayaka asks jokingly, but I can hear the worry in her voice. Worry for me. 

“Sorry, Sayaka. It’s just...”

“I know.” She pats my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve taken care of me for so long, so it’s the least I can do to take care of you for a while. Would you like tea?” 

“Sure. Thanks, Sayaka. Really.” 

She smiles. “Of course.” 

...

The second day comes and goes without a word from her.

“I’m going to go check on her.” I announce, standing up abruptly. Sayaka flinches, startled. 

“Want me to come with you?”

“Sure, but if things get...”

“I’ll leave.” She promises.

A minute later, we leave her house and arrive outside of mine. Passing the wards, I stretch out my senses, probing for her qi.

“She’s in there, I think, but...what the—” I lunge past Sayaka, kicking the door in.

“Hey, wait—” 

“Setsuna!” 

She’s collapsed on the floor, her cheeks flushed and her breathing staggered. 

“Sayaka! Call Hikaru here!” I kneel by the fallen sealer, qi humming agitatedly around my fingers. “Now!” 

...

“She’ll be fine, Yuki. Relax.” Hikaru soothes. 

I run my hands through her hair. How hadn’t I noticed what was going on with her?

_Oh, right. Because you thought it would be a smart idea to leave her alone. Godsdamned it, Yuki, why haven’t you learned? Why haven’t you figured it out? You told Setsuna that it didn’t feel like she trusted you, but you’re guilty of that too, aren’t you?_

_...You didn’t trust that she still cared for you._

_And now she’s done it again. Pushed herself over the brink to try and drown out everything else. This must have been why she was at the bar, too. I should have realized..._

_“If you guys started dating, but broke up...maybe she’s afraid of losing you. Maybe she’s just afraid that she’ll have nothing left...”_

Mari realized it before I did. Mari, who by her own admittance, isn’t as close to her as I am. 

_“Why is it that you’re so in love with Setsuna?”_

I didn’t know her as well as I’d thought, but I’d wanted to change that. I thought that I could. But every time I take a step forward, it feels like I take two steps backwards.

Reaching forward, I take her clammy hand in mine. 

_Please, Setsuna. I need you to open up to me. I...I don’t know what I can do if you don’t._

“You understand her treatment plan, right, Yuki?” Hikaru asks, interrupting my reverie. 

“Yes.” Water gathers around the sponge in my hand. “It’s the long-term treatment that I’m far more concerned about.”

She seems to get my meaning. “If there’s anything I can do, Yuki, just ask.”

“Thanks.” I murmur. “But I suspect that this is something only I can do.”

“...Alright. Take care of yourself too, alright?” She moves to leave the room.

“Ah, wait. Hikaru?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, but...I won’t be able to go on the trip after all.”

“I understand.” Her footsteps come back, and she hugs me from behind a moment later. For a moment, I’m able to relax, to _feel_ , but she pulls away shortly after. “If you need anything, just let me know, alright?”

“Thank you, Hikaru.”

...

Setsuna awakens a few hours later, blinking rapidly. 

“Setsuna...” I whisper. “Are you aware? Can you hear me?” 

“...ngh...”

I wait patiently as she regains her bearings. 

“Water?” 

She nods weakly. I reach out with my free hand and grab the glass of Water I’ve prepared in advance as she struggles to a sitting position, leaning heavily on me. 

“Here.” Pressing the rim to her lips, I tip the contents slowly into her mouth — she coughs, but having expected it, I’m careful not to drop the glass. 

“Wha...that...?”

“It has a bit of my qi in it.” I explain. “Since you’re suffering from a bit of qi exhaustion, this should help revitalize you a little bit.” 

Nodding, she reaches out for it again, and I help her once more. This time, she’s able to keep it down, gulping greedily from the glass.

“Hey, slow down, or you’re going to choke...” As she drinks, though, I can see the life rapidly returning to the sick girl. 

_That would be the trace amounts of Etheria I put into it._

“Thank...thank you...” She pants, looking tired despite it, though. I’m hardly surprised — according to Hikaru, she had been maintaining about sixty hours of uninterrupted consciousness before she collapsed, and a few hours isn’t going to change anything. 

“Sleep, Setsuna.”

She nods, then glances down at where I’ve been holding her hand. For a moment, I think that she wants me to pull away, but she grips tighter, as if worried of that very thing. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” I answer her unspoken question. Relief floods her eyes. 

“Sleep...with me?” 

“You’re still suffering from your fever...” I hesitate. “I suppose close contact with me, of all people, will help you sleep better. Alright.” 

...

When I wake up a few hours later, she’s still fast asleep, head resting on my shoulder. 

_It reminds me of what we had before._

It’s evident to me now that all Setsuna wants is to go back to what we had before. That the distance I’ve forced between us has hurt her. 

_Is that something I can offer her, though? What we had before...I realize now, in hindsight, that a lot of my feelings for her bled into the way I treated her, even without realizing it. But those feelings are gone now._

_That damage can’t be healed._

But there are still some things that I can do to help her, aren’t there? I can stop pushing her away, for one.

That’s a good start.

...

Setsuna regains consciousness about sixteen hours later, her fever having subsided by then. 

“Good morning, Setsuna. You must be feeling dreadfully weak right now, right? I’ve prepared a very thin broth for you, but you’re going to need water first. It’ll probably be a day or two before you’ll bounce back, alright?” I hold up a glass of enhanced Water. “Are you feeling well enough to take a sip?”

She nods weakly, and so the process begins anew. 

...

My initial estimate holds out well — it takes her about forty hours before she regains any semblance of normal, staggering her way to the bathroom and back. I pay close attention to her condition, but it seems that she’s much better now, the combination of sickness and fatigue having passed through her system.

_Of course, she’s only physically fine. But that won’t prevent a relapse. The only thing that can, though, is a blunt conversation between us._

But the only words that have passed her lips since the first time she awakened have been ‘thanks’ and ‘sorry’. 

_“I can’t make you talk to me, Setsuna, so...you know what? Whenever you’re ready, you come find me, alright? I’ll wait. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”_

Perhaps she really doesn’t intend to open up to me ever. In which case...

In which case, I’m not sure what I’d do. 

_This has to end. I can’t keep avoiding this. One way or another...at least, then, I’ll know. I’ll know what it is she wants._

“Setsuna?” 

“Hm?” The sealer looks up at me from where she’s lying on the bed, a bowl of soup in her lap.

“Are you feeling well enough to talk?”

She stills, then takes her bowl of soup and moves it off of her to the desk next to the bed. 

“I...would not mind resting more, but maybe I’m just running away from it, huh...? Alright.”

A mixed sense of unease and relief shoots through me at her words. 

“When we spoke last, I...I _asked_ you to approach me when you were ready to talk to me. Have you...well, I realize that you were—” 

“I’ve thought about it, yes.” She interjects, saving me from continuing further. “I’ve thought about many things. Things which I should tell you. Should have told you earlier. Maybe much of this would have been avoided had I just trusted you...” She smiles self-deprecatingly. “I had been planning on telling you earlier, but then that whole mission happened, and you confessed to me, and...it hasn’t been a good time. Not with everything between us so uncertain.”

“You still mean a great deal to me, Setsuna.” I say honestly.

“But not as much as I did before, right?” She asks knowingly. 

I close my eyes. “I do not possess romantic feelings for you any longer, if that’s what you’re asking.”

It’s surprisingly hard to meet her gaze after that, but I force myself to. She looks a little sad at the news. “Did you grow out of it, then?”

For a moment, I seriously contemplate lying to her before deciding that, if I am to ask her to be honest with me, the least I should do is be honest in return. “No. I used...the Veil instead, to seal away those feelings.”

A flash of pain flickers over her features. “So that’s what it was...”

“I do not know how I would have coped with my feelings for much longer, had I not done that.” I say truthfully. “It was...and is...a decision I don’t regret.”

She winces. 

“But I guess it was wrong of me to assume you didn’t notice the difference, huh...? Well, back then, I wasn’t strong enough to handle that. Not without the Veil, but...but Mari told me that I should stop doing that. That I should stop using the Veil at all, unless I truly needed to. Because it would hurt me later...and wouldn’t you know it, she was right?” My fists clench. “Because I wasn’t strong enough after all. I gave in, Setsuna. And I cut a little piece of me out from my soul. That’s...that’s how I was able to move on. I thought it would be better this way.” I slump. “That now that our feelings were the same, that we would be able to become closer. Without that hanging over us. But we only grew more distant, instead.”

“I...I didn’t dislike it, Yuki.” Setsuna whispers. “The way you treated me before you confessed to me. On some level, I think I knew...but I didn’t want to say anything to upset the balance.” She shakes her head. “Maybe I should have. Because I wound up losing it anyways. But...” She looks away. “This might be for the best...”

“Why do you say that?”

She takes a deep breath. 

“I’ve...” She begins haltingly, “Over the last few months, I’ve come to realize that you...don’t need me.”

I open my mouth to interject, and she raises a hand. 

_Let me finish, please, or I might not be able to start again._

“You don’t...need me. Not like you used to. And I’ve noticed that I’ve always, _always_ been holding you back. Just...just look at us now. Instead of being on your training trip — Sayaka told me about that — you’ve been stuck inside for the last few days taking care of me. It’s been like that for so long, Yuki. I just...I hold you back. But Sayaka and Mari...everyone else, really, they’ve all been _pushing_ you forward. Pulling you along with them. And I’m...I am just a burden. And that, Yuki? That could...that could come to kill you, one day, or one of our precious friends. S-So I’ve been thinking...maybe I should just...leave. But that would...well, I wasn’t too sure, but maybe that would...that would hurt you. So I thought...I should just start pulling away, a little at a time, or maybe try to get you to hate me...but every time I tried...” Her hands dig into her shirt. “It hurt so, so much to even think about. But I still tried...I still...tried, but then you chased after me and I saw my chance, but I couldn’t and then you gave _me_ the chance to stay away but it felt like I was slowly falling to pieces by myself and I couldn’t close my eyes because every time I did all I could see was a future by myself and I couldn’t—” 

She cuts herself off, gasping for air. “You don’t need someone like me, Yuki. Not any more. So...so if I’m ever to repay you back, Yuki, then I...I need to do what’s right for you. And that means—” 

“Staying with me.” I whisper. 

“Wha—” 

“You’re...right. I don’t _need_ you anymore, I suppose.” She bows her head, unable to meet my gaze. “Ever since I opened my Veil, I suppose I haven’t needed anyone at all, really. I could go off and do my own thing...but, Setsuna, I would _hate_ that life so much. Ever since I met you, I haven’t _wanted_ to be alone! You think you aren’t pulling me forward in your own way?! You’ve shown me what it feels like to _love_ someone, Setsuna, even with my own limited understanding! Despite that I’m an Ice Aberrant! You, Setsuna, and no one else! We’ve made...so many memories together, you and I, long before anyone else was a real factor. We became partners! I may not truly need you in the sense you talk about, but I most certainly _want_ you here with me, Setsuna!” My hands grip her collar, pulling her closer to me and forcing her to look at my face. “I don’t _ever_ want you to leave, Setsuna! You idiot!” 

Then I let her collar go, only to wrap her into a tight hug that forces her head into my chest.

“But still...it’s not fair to you, is it? Your feelings, your desires, they’re all honest. And it would be wrong of me to reject that. So I’ll give you a choice. A chance, maybe. Just one. If you...if it’s still what you truly believe, then you can walk out. I won’t...I won’t chase you. It’ll be the separation that you wanted.”

A strangled laugh bubbles out of her mouth, muffled by my shirt. 

“You...you can’t ask something like that while you’re holding me like this...” She whispers, “Because there’s no way I can say no. Not...not when I can feel your warmth, your coolness, your heartbeat...”

“Sorry.” My hand strokes her hair. “But I thought it would be best to stack the odds a little in my favor.”

She pulls back to look up at me, eyes bright with unshed tears. 

“I’ll stay, Yuki. Until you tell me to go. I’ll stay.”

“You’re staying here forever, then.” I agree. She smiles shyly.

“If you’ll have me.”

My heart skips a beat. 

“Of course I’ll have you, dummy.”

_...I thought I sealed these feelings away? So why are they coming back?_

Her gaze softens. “I’m...really glad to hear that. Really...” The tears she’s been holding back slip down her face. “I...”

I plant a gentle kiss on her forehead and pull her back to me as she finally gives in, crying tears of relief.

...And no one can prove that I was crying either, damn it.

...

“I need to tell you something, Yuki. What I was going to tell you before.” 

I nod. “Alright. Now?”

She swallows. “If it’s possible, yes. I don’t want to put this off any longer, so...if you could just...be here with me?”

I nod, pulling back slightly so that I can look her in the eyes. “Of course.” 

“Thanks...ah, where to begin...? I guess I should start with...well, the thing you know me most for. My seals. You’ve obviously noticed that I have...quite the gift for them. Well...that’s true, in more ways than one.”

“It can’t be, but...Clairvoyance...?” I breathe out. 

“Exactly.” She fidgets. “I can... _see_ things. Runes, seals...I have the innate gift to understand exactly what they mean. Even if I’ve never seen them before, I just...know.”

“If you are a Clairvoyant...” I hesitate. “Were you...born—” 

“Yes.” She bites her lip. “I was born in Arcacia.”

“Cool.” I muse. She flushes. “What, did you think I would trust you less for it?”

She averts her gaze.

“You...” I sigh. “Anyways, continue?”

“W-Well, I was...um, how do I say this...? I was...royalty, of a sorts, Yuki. Um, not the main line, of course! There’s...well, the specifics don’t matter much, but I would have...could have been someone of relatively high status, if it wasn’t for one thing.” 

“Your magic?” 

She nods. “My lack of thereof, more like. That much...that much has always been true for me. But...in Arcacia, such a thing is...it’s a scandal. So they...my _family_ , they took me away from the public eye, arranged some kind of _accident_ to explain my disappearance, and they...then they abandoned me in the outskirts of Arcacia.”

“Those bastards...” I whisper, appalled. 

She smiles sadly. “I think I was...four? My memories of that time are really scattered, and I survived mostly on instinct and the other gift of Clairvoyants.”

“The other gift?”

“Right. We have second-sight and...one other thing. _Future-sight_. The limited ability...to see the future.”

“That’s...that’s insane.” I whisper. “Wait, so does that mean you knew that I—”

She shakes her head quickly. “Whatever you’re going to say, the answer is no. I...haven’t had a vision since I left Arcacia. But my gift was very active during my travels...I lived solely because of it, travelling as a stowaway on caravans, avoiding the worst of the danger and targeting those with the most kindness, the most compassion...for a time, I could barely discern the difference between the real world and the ethereal world.”

“The ethereal world?” 

Setsuna nods. “It’s...impossible to explain to someone who hasn’t seen it before. And I don’t know the theory behind it.” She shakes her head. “My magical knowledge is limited to what exists here in Alune...which isn’t exactly expansive.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind, in case I ever go there.”

She nods. “Eventually, I moved out of Arcacia entirely, where I lost the visions. Thankfully, my last vision...the next caravan I got onto was one that took me directly to Alune, and the people there were...not exactly _nice_ , but...” She averts her gaze. “I was too young for them, at least.” 

“Ah.” I breathe darkly. 

“I learned some useful things from them.” She scratches her head sheepishly. “Like how to steal. And I may have...applied this lesson to their money as I left.” 

I grin. “That’s my girl.”

“A-Anyways, um. That’s how I got here. To Alune. A ninja helped me to an orphanage in exchange for the money I sto—requisitioned, a-and that’s that. It’s...heh, part of the reason I wanted to become a ninja at all. The other reason, Yuki...” She averts her gaze. “I’ve always wanted to go back. I want to know that which I’ve lost. The magic I could have learned to wield one day, perhaps, the same as the qi that I know now. And the runes that were denied to me, my runes, Yuki. I want that.”

“Do you want to live there, Setsuna?” I ask seriously, then pause. “Er. Is Setsuna your name, now? Did you want—” 

She shakes her head quickly. “First of all, I don’t want to live there. Alune is my home now. And secondly...call me Setsuna, Yuki. Setsuna Tsuri, if you want.” She smiles shyly. “Tsuri...means _small song_ in Arcacian. I thought it...was appropriate.” 

“And what does Setsuna mean?” I ask curiously. 

She smiles shyly. “Literally, it means ‘hidden big power’. But I like to think of it as...a flower blooming.”

“The small song of a blooming flower?” I muse. 

She blushes. “S-Something like that, yeah.” 

“So that’s your story, huh?” 

“No.” She interjects forcefully. “That’s just...a chapter. Everything else...meeting you.” She squeezes me. “Becoming stronger and making friends...that’s my story. I don’t want you to pity me for that, especially because...” She averts her gaze, “I don’t really remember much of it, anyways. But I survived, and I’m here now. And the person you see now...” 

She swallows. “As broken as I am, Yuki, I’m still here, trying. That’s what I want you to see. Not the shattered thing I used to be.” 

I pat her head. “I know, Setsuna. I know. I see that every time I look at you, silly.” I grin. “You’re a ninja who isn’t a User. If there’s someone who tries, who finds the strength to do the impossible...I know it’s you, Setsuna.” 

She blushes. “T-Thanks, Yuki.” She leans up and gently kisses me on the cheek. “For...for everything. Really. I...you mean so much to me, you know? I don’t know what I could do without you.”

I smile, ruffling her hair. “You’re a strong woman now, Setsuna. I think you could manage. But—” I hold up a hand to stop her as she opens her mouth to interject, “I want to be here with you as you...blossom.”

She stares deeply into my eyes. As close as we are, I can see every little detail of her face. 

_Now that I’m looking for it, she does seem to have the delicate features of someone who could have been a princess. I had wondered about that ever since I’d met her, hadn’t I? I’d thought she was...pretty. Even back then._

And that beauty has only matured with time. 

“Yuki?” She whispers softly. 

“Yes, Setsuna?” 

“If you were to k-kiss me...I wouldn’t push you away right now.” 

I consider her offer. 

“Um, wait, y-you said that...you sealed away your feelings, right? Um, sorry, just forget I—” 

I lean forward and kiss her. There’s no reasoning behind it, no thought. It’s nothing but sheer impulse, and it makes no sense. I shouldn’t feel this way towards her. My heart shouldn’t be erratically thudding in my chest, my blood shouldn’t have been boiling in anticipation. 

_But it does._

She makes a small sound of surprise, but doesn’t pull away. Returns the kiss eagerly, even, her hands fisting into my shirt to hold me close. Our lips part, then close together. Again and again, as if we’ll lose each other if we stop. I’m not sure how long we spend. Ten minutes? Thirty? An hour? It’s certainly not long enough when she finally pulls away, lips slightly swollen from all the kissing we’ve done. 

“I…” She swallows. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be…leading you on like this, should I?”

“I don’t care.” I say honestly. “I’m just…I don’t care.”

She giggles unsteadily. “I’m...heehee...I...I don’t regret that, Yuki. I still...I still can’t properly return your feelings, but...”

 _Sorry to say, Setsuna, but your feelings are quite clear on the matter now, even though you haven’t said anything. When we kissed, I felt_ **_exactly_ ** _how you felt about me. That much was undeniable. You simply can’t accept those feelings, and that...that much I can understand._

I lay my head on her shoulder. “It’s okay. I’ve come to terms with that now, and I understand.”

Tentatively, she embraces me, and I return it. It’s not a perfect solution, but I think we both feel a little better for it. 

_I won’t make this mistake ever again, Setsuna._

_I’ll protect you, no matter what._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is. That was a journey. 
> 
> If you've the time, please, let me know how you felt about it with a comment! :)


	79. (3.8.6) Interlude 2, Closing (Leona's POV)

#  **3.8.6 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Interlude 2, Closing (Leona’s POV)**

“Begin!” 

My opponent, a red-headed Fire User twenty meters away, levels her wand at me and casts the first spell. 

“ _Mise!_ ” 

I roll my eyes and lazily sidestep to the right. The shot goes past me, impacting against the shields.

“Wow. Amazing.” I say dryly. “I gave you first cast right, and you started with that? The standard, basic fireball spell? Really?”

“Shut up!” The girl scowls. “ _Mise_!” 

I sidestep to the left.

“Lightbringer, this is boring. Do you have anything better?” 

“ _Mise! Mise! Mise!_ ” 

This time, the shots are dense enough to make simple sidestepping difficult. 

…I duck under them.

“Maybe something a little more widespread, eh?” 

“Grr! _Minaa!_ ”

“Oh, very nice.” I praise, timing the ongoing attack. “A D-ranked _heat wave_?!” 

Since that particular spell has the tendency to float up, I duck—

_“Mise!”_

I blink at the oncoming fireball, timed to hit me as I dodge.

 _“Mizusa.”_ I mutter, the spell forming around my foot. Then I kick the fireball out of the air. 

“Wha—!” 

I frown at her. “Really? You don’t know how _Mise_ _really_ works, do you? It’s an E-ranked spell. Super easy to parry. It’s literally a basic elemental spell. Fire plus ball. If you counter the fire, all you have to do is deflect the force.” 

“Leona.” My instructor warns me. “Take this seriously or I’ll dock your grade for the day.”

I glare at her smug grin, then pause. She knows perfectly well what I’m capable of. Is there some other meaning behind this? Besides wasting my time, that is. 

Eh, probably. I’m sure that’ll be a more interesting puzzle than this fight.

“It would take me less than three seconds to take her down.” I say flatly. “You’re going to need to make this more interesting if you want me to try.” 

“Three seconds—“ Lisa begins to interject.

“Fine. Claire, Harry, George. Join Lisa. Your goal is to incapacitate Leona.”

My eyes light up. That makes an Earth, Air, and Water mage respectively, joining the Fire one on the field. Now this…this could be interesting! Even if they’re all individually terribly weak, at least they can use synergetic spells!

_Well. If I let them._

“Lisa!” Harry calls. “Join up with me!” 

“Got it!”

Nice. So…Fire-Air, and Earth-Water, maybe. Standard stuff, mostly, but standard for a reason. For a moment, I’m tempted to actually try. Just for a moment.

_Nah. I’ll be fine._

_“Minaa! Nika! Tasu! Karabira!”_

_Heat Wave. Air Shot. Earth Rock. And…Five Ice Swords, if I heard correctly. They’re buying time to synergize, aren’t they? How slow. So…_

The Air Shot arrives first, but I negate it with a whispered _“Nizusa.”_ A silent simple force spell lets me shatter the hurled boulder as I duck once more under the Heat Wave, and that same reinforcement spell lets me weave around the hurled blades as I begin closing the distance on the four. 

_Huh. Alright, George’s a threat, then. That was a pretty decent D-ranked spell. The other two are using E-ranked spells only._

With that in mind, I target him first. Lisa and Harry retreat, wands glowing orange as they try to link, leaving Claire and George to hold me off. 

_Nope. Fuck that. I don’t want to deal with synergetic spells today._

A bit of magic calls my wand out of my arm-holster and to my hand, for the first time in the match.

“ _Firelight Circle_.” I incant. 

The two jump as a blazingly-bright ring erupts from my wand, rapidly growing as it blinds them. 

“Ahhh!” Claire shrieks, stumbling backwards. 

_“Rasa!_ ” George shouts, far more usefully. 

It’s to no avail, though, as the ring passes through the summoned wall of water and impacts them, exploding in a scattershot of glittering particles. It does no damage, but it’s disorienting enough. 

Jabbing my wand into the erected barrier— 

_“Razusa_!”

I force it to fall apart uselessly and dart through the falling water, a burst of whispered telekinesis sending the water away from me.

Then, silently reinforcing my wand, I use it as a makeshift baton and crack the water user upside the head with it. 

“Guh!” The blow knocks him to the ground, groaning. Stepping past him, I lunge and forcefully jab Claire in the stomach with the tip of my wand, then dodge as she unceremoniously throws up. Waltzing past her, I lash out, hitting her in the back of the head and knocking her unconscious.

_She’s lucky I’m generous enough to knock her away from her own mess._

“Two down.” I say cheerfully. “Two to go!” 

“Y-You’re so fast!” Harry stutters. “How?” 

“Reinforcement.” I reply honestly. “I’m just good at it.” 

“But…you didn’t use any incantation at all! You didn’t even have your wand out at first!” 

I shrug. “I’m really good at it. And besides, reinforcement is all internal. It isn’t hard to learn.” 

“We’ve barely studied anything beyond basic reinforcement in class!”

“Ah.” I say, smiling. “And we’ve hit the main difference between you and I, haven’t we? You’re trying to pass classes. I’m trying to _learn magic_. And that’s why I’m a Mage Knight.” I tap the hilt at my waist. “You didn’t think this was for show, did you?”

 _“Miha!”_ Lisa snarls, lunging past her partner. Blazing flame erupts from her wand, taking the shape of a sword.

“Lisa, wait, the synergy—“ 

“Fuck the synergy!” She snaps, running directly at me.

“He’s right.” I say mildly. “You should wait for the — no? Well, alright. You know, you’ve had a pretty disappointing showing in this spar.” I say. “I’m not drawing my sword for this.” 

“ _Anaka!”_

A reinforcement spell. She doesn’t seem very good with it, as her change in speed isn’t especially impressive. 

She lunges. I sidestep, my reinforcement still active, and perform an extravagant, over-the-top spinning jump kick that still connects with her face, sending her spinning away and half-insensate. 

_Now to punish her for abandoning her teammate, and common sense._

Landing gracefully, I point my outstretched hand at her.

“Pull.”

As if yanked by an invisible force, her body is pulled towards me. 

“Hi-yah!” 

A dual palm thrust, coupled with a simple wandless, silent reinforcement spell, sends her body flying forcefully at Harry, who doesn’t react in time to stop her. The two go tumbling head over heels. 

I smile at my work, then pause as the hair on the back of my neck tingles.

“George, if you cast that spell at me, I’m going to beat you to within an inch of your life.”

The sensation of power fades.

“Good boy.” 

“That’s enough.” Our instructor calls out. “Class, I hope you’ve learned a valuable lesson today.” 

_A lesson? Was I supposed to learn a lesson from this?_

I send a disappointed look at the teacher, who only winks back at me. 

**You look bored.**

_That’s because it was! Super! Duper! Boring!_

**Oh, don’t make such a fuss. You know no one can stand up to you in this class, anyways. And besides, I do have to teach all these other kids, too.**

_How to lose?_

**Oh, no. I taught them...what was it you said? Right, I taught them how to learn magic.**

_Wait a minute, you—_

**See you tomorrow, Leona!**

_Hey! You bitch! I’m stealing your beer for this!_

**You can try~!**

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that brings us to the end of the "Interlude". Next is the final arc of Act 3, so hold onto your seatbelts!


	80. (3.9.1) Resolve, Part 1

#  **3.9.1 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Resolve, Part 1**

Northern Border Patrol Y493M8D13, Addendum

_7S:7S_

_Assigned: 3-4S, 7S | 2H_

_Leader: Mari_

_Objective: Routine Border Patrol of the Northern Border, Sector 31 (Kitamori / Oshiroikishi). See below._

_Timeline: Standard (14D)_

_Update: Multiple routine patrols have fallen out of contact. Suspected enemy activity. Rescue survivors if possible. Report useful information at all costs. Determine identity of aggressors._

_Missing:_

I glance down the list. 

Besides me, Sayaka stiffens.

“What is it?” I whisper.

Wordlessly, she points at two of the names.

 _Koji Hayashi  
_ _Hisoki Matsumoto_

Those names…Where do I know them from, again?

“Your old teammates, right?” I ask. She nods grimly. 

“Yeah. My old handler’s on the list, too.” The Wind Mistress anxiously clutches at her dress. “I don’t like this.”

“We can handle it.” Mari assures her. “We’re really strong. I’m actually qualified for my eighth-star promotion.” 

I blink. “Already? Your seventh-star provisional promotion was only…what, ten months ago?” 

“Yep.” 

_That’s insane. Promotion times from seventh to eighth levels are usually measured in spans of years._

“What else is there?” Setsuna asks. 

“Let’s see…”

_Addendum: Combat with Arcacian Mages and Mage Knights anticipated. Research on their fighting styles is highly recommended._

_Addendum: First team lost contact. Mission updated from fourth-star to fifth-star significance._

_Addendum: Second team lost contact. Mission updated from fifth-star to seventh-star significance. Recommend sending a team suitable for taking down opposing mages with the expectation that combat will occur. Also recommend sending a team with high sensory capabilities due to the heightened possibility of ambush._

I bite my lip. “We’ve handled combat against a mage before. If combat with them is anything like that, we definitely need to be on our guard. We’ll…start the mission no earlier than tomorrow. Be ready to deploy ASAP."

_…_

“Master, what do you know about Arcacian Mages?” 

She raises an eyebrow. “So you’re the team they’re sending, huh?”

“Wait, how do you know about that?”

“I _am_ a ninth-star, even if I’m not active.” She replies, yawning. “I know what’s going on.”

“But — well, I guess.” I say, shrugging. “Anyways, got anything?”

“Hm…not too much. Let’s see…well, let’s start with the etymology of magic, shall we? In High Arcacian, the characters for _mana_ mean ‘outer power’, as opposed to the characters for _qi_ , which, heh, means ‘wand’. Of course, they use a different term for qi, ' _chakara' ,_ which is shortened to ' _chakra'_ , and the characters for that correspond to ‘force control inner’. This is a reflection of the way magic is an external art, whereas qi is an internal art. But what about magic itself? Well, first and foremost, magic is actually shorthand for _magika_ , spelled with the characters “outer miracle”. And if you break down ‘miracle’—“ 

“Hikaru, you’re starting to ramble.”

“Oops. Where was I? Right. Anyways, Arcacians are obsessed with light. The Sun, especially.” 

I blink at the non-sequitur. “Wait, doesn’t Lunaria mean—” 

She smiles enigmatically. “Well, that’s most likely a product of our shared ancestry.”

“Our _what_?” 

“Lunaria split from Arcacia about five centuries ago in an incident called The Second Great Rebellion.” 

“…Huh. They didn’t teach that in school. Anyways, light?”

“Yes, Arcacians love the light. They worship it. It’s sacred to them, and although there are multiple religions and denominations thereof, almost all of them share a common love for light. If you break down some of their words — for example, _spellcrafter_ — you’ll find light in the roots of those words. Spellcrafter — in other words, _light sparker._ Magic, light, and life are all intertwined concepts.” 

“Neat.” I say, vaguely interested despite how meaningless the information is. “What’s the point of this?”

“Lunarian ninja work from the shadows, while they prefer the light. They’re straightforward fighters that rely on overwhelming their opponents with superior numbers. It takes years to be an average ninja. It takes months to be an average magus. Their great equalizer, however, is _synergetic_ magic.” 

“Let me guess…” I say flatly. “It allows them to combine their powers together.” 

“Pretty much.” She nods. “The more people involved, though, the harder it is. Usually it’s two people, but there have been records of up to two hundred. The spell that synergy generated created the Great Lunarian Desert.” 

“…So above _Spellweaver_ -level, then?” I ask softly. 

“Yeah. But those were some of their most accomplished mages, and a quarter of them died from magical overstrain. But that’s the level of potential they can reach, so don’t underestimate them, you got it?” Hikaru glares at me seriously. “Individually, the majority of their mages are weaker than you, that’s true. But never, ever treat them like they can’t hurt you. Because they can. And they _will_ kill you, if you give them the chance. Don’t give them one.”

“I won’t.” I agree.

“Good.” She sighs heavily. “Good. Katsuo thinks there’s war on the horizon, and I’m inclined to agree with him, Yuki. There’s something…unpleasant going on at the border. Be careful, please.”

_“Her death…wasn’t easy. That Fire User I mentioned, he…he burned her alive.”_

“I’ll be careful, Hikaru.” I assure her. Her eyes linger on me for a moment.

“Thank you.”

“One last thing, Yuki.”

“Huh?” 

She walks up to me and pokes me in the chest. “Don’t forget about this.” 

_This? Ah, that._

“The Etheria, right?” I ask. “I won’t.”

_Though most of it isn’t exactly stored in my chest anymore..._

…

“I haven’t hit you in months.” I gripe, dancing around one of Mari’s shocking strikes. “What changed? I used to be able to take you off guard.”

The Storm Mistress whirls, lances of lightning flying off of her fingertips. I’m forced to hit the ground, letting them fly past me, then roll as she drops an axe kick at my position that shatters the thin earth beneath us. 

“Hey!” Sayaka yells through the door. “If you guys hit the seals that hard, you’re going to overload them!” 

“Blame Mari!” I yell back. “She’s the one doing the overloading!” 

“Heh, get it? Because I use—“ 

“No.” I say, groaning. “Don’t even go there. And I notice you haven’t answered my question.”

She grins. “Well, I’ve grown stronger.” 

“So have I! But you’re still way above me!” 

“Hmm, I suppose so.” 

I give her a flat glare.

“Heh. Well, I guess we should take a break, then. Wouldn’t want to pop your seals.” Mari powers down, sparking briefly. 

“Still working on that control, huh?” I ask. 

She nods. “Yeah…pretty much. It’s slow. But I’m making progress! I think I’m almost able to hug someone without electrocuting them!” 

“Really?” I ask. She’s been working on that for the better part of half a year. “Show me.”

Without hesitation, she crosses the distance between us and grabs me in a bear hug, lifting me off my feet. 

“Hey! Let go!”

“You said to show you!” She grins, easily swinging me around in a circle. “Look! No sparks!” 

A jolt of electricity pings off my Etheria shields. 

“Er. Work in progress?” 

I smile. “It’s getting better. That was a really weak spark.” 

She sets me down gently. “I’m glad to hear that. Maybe soon I’ll be able to hug whoever I want.”

“Perhaps so.” I agree. 

...

“Sayaka.”

She glances away from the book laid out in front of her. “Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

She smiles bitterly. “I’m fine.” The blunette’s currently sitting cross-legged on the floor, a short table pulled up in front of her. 

“Worried about your teammates?” I ask.

“...I’m surprised you picked up on it.” 

“I didn’t. Mari told me.” I admit.

That manages to elicit a small smile. “That’s more your style, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so.” I agree.

I haven’t the faintest idea how to comfort her. False comfort isn’t my thing, nor would it be effective — Sayaka’s too much of a realist. Like me. There’s no point in telling her that they’re safe, that we’ll rescue them, when they’re most likely already dead. She’s aware of that as much as I am.

How would I comfort myself, then...?

Er…

“…What are you doing?” 

“…I’m hugging you?” I ask, uncertainly.

Sayaka giggles. _Giggles._ “Well, you’re trying, I suppose. It’s…nice, I guess?” 

“What would you do?” I ask directly. “I…I want to comfort you the way you have me, but I don’t know what to do.” 

She laughs weakly, leaning into me. It’s a far cry from the cheery, flirtatious blunette I know, but it’s a start.

“I’ll figure it out, Yuki."

…

“Hey.” 

“Hey, yourself.” I say, smiling. Setsuna flashes me a shy smile back, stepping forward to hug me. I return the hug, holding her close and breathing in her scent.

That day seems to have fixed the rift that had formed between us. She accepts intimate gestures — encourages them, even — and seems far less reserved around me than she used to. 

_And, perhaps most importantly, she’s started smiling again._

And as for I…

Sealing my feelings away was pointless, after all. I just fell back in love with her, even though I tried to keep my distance. So I’ve given up trying to resist. She doesn’t seem to mind, anyways. We haven’t kissed again, though, nor does she hint at wanting to do it again. I get the feeling that it was just a one-off thing. 

_That’s okay. It’s not a memory I could ever forget._

“Are you ready, Setsuna?” 

She looks up at me.

“Yes.”

“Sleep well.”

“You too, Yuki.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last arc of Act 3 is here.


	81. (3.9.2) Resolve, Part 2

#  **3.9.2 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Resolve, Part 2**

The journey takes seven full days. Travel is uneventful, and I make sure not to push everyone too hard — on the off chance a fight breaks out, I don’t want anyone to be too tired to fight at optimal levels. That being said, everyone can sustain multiple hours of running with ease, so very few breaks are needed. At my request, we all work on our internal and external reinforcement during the run — it’s a vital skill that doesn’t significantly fluctuate one’s qi, and as such won’t give us away to any sensors.

During the last day of travel, I slow down our approach.

“Setsuna, stay on guard. You’re our eyes and ears.” 

“Understood.”

“I’ll keep an eye out too.” Mari says cheerfully. I glance at her. 

“…Since when could you sense anything?” I ask, a little surprised. 

She sticks her tongue out at me. “I can passively detect bio-electricity now, captain. If there’s anyone in the vicinity, I’ll pick up on their signals, no matter how they try to hide it.”

“Huh.” I mutter, surprised. “So you’re a real sensor, now? What’s your effective range?”

“Mm…passively, fifty meters or so in this forest. Maybe two hundred in more open ground. Double when I concentrate, but only in isolated areas.”

 _Fifty meters, huh? That’s_ **_my_ ** _effective range, even on open ground. That’s actually pretty useful._

_Of course, Setsuna can pick out my signature from over five hundred meters away if she concentrates. Even so, Mari’s unexpected sensory development is really useful, and works in a very, very different way that I doubt many people could hide from at all._

_No, wait, this isn’t that unexpected. She’s had that weakness for close to a year, and she could already detect bio-electricity to identify lies. So you really did develop that control after all, huh, Mari?_

“Alright. Good work, then. Keep an eye out too.”

The Storm Mistress grins, triumphant. 

We slow down even further as we approach the border, trailing to a stealthy walk. Shortly after noon, Setsuna’s eyes narrow.

“Trouble?” I ask, alarmed. 

“One person, civilian, moving quickly from the direction of the nearest village, Kitamori…too quickly for a civilian. Estimated distance…thirty kilometers from town.”

“It’s a horse.” Mari identifies, her eyes closed. “He’s riding a horse.”

I frown. “A messenger, perhaps?”

“His heart’s racing. Trouble, maybe.” 

“Move to intercept.” I order. “Mari, with me. The other two — stealth.” 

Seamlessly, we move as planned, Mari and I racing forward to cut him off. 

“His positioning…he’s heading to Alune.” Mari says. 

I narrow my eyes. “Distress call?”

The brunette shrugs. 

It doesn’t take long for him to get in visual range. He slows as we approach.

“I…Identify yourselves!” He shouts out, hand flying to a blade at his waist.

“Alune ninja on border patrol.” Mari says smoothly, flashing her ninja ID card. “What’s going on, sir?”

The man expresses a bizarre combination of shock and relief. “Ma’am, we’ve...we’ve...”

“Calm down, sir.” Mari says soothingly. “What’s your name?”

“H-Hiroto, ma’am.”

“Hiroto? Good, good. Take a deep breath, alright? Then speak.” 

He follows her orders, looking marginally less tense. “Ma’am…Kitamori’s been...attacked. We don’t know by who or what. Almost…almost everyone is…” He swallows heavily. “Dead.”

I narrow my eyes even as my brain races rapidly. Attackers? Who? And...why massacre the people of this town? They have little strategic value!

“Understood. Are they still there?”

He shakes his head. “N-No. They’re not. By the time I got back, they were already gone. It was only…I didn’t see anyone. I was outside the village at the time, just gathering some herbs maybe ten kilometers out from the village, when I heard a strange noise. I didn’t think anything of it, but…when I got back…”

“Let’s analyze the damage.” I tell Mari clinically. “It may give us clues as to their attackers. We can also evacuate all survivors to…the nearest village is Oshiroikishi, isn’t it? They can handle the influx of people, I think.” 

She nods. “Sir, I’m sorry, but we’re going to ask you to return to the village with us and lead the evacuation. We’ll meet you at the evacuation point, and by then we should hopefully have a little more information to take back to Alune.” 

“I…understood.” He still looks shaken, but nonetheless looks determined. A bit of a backbone in this one, then. Good.

Behind my back, I flash hand signs, indicating to Sayaka and Setsuna that they should follow us without revealing themselves.

…

The smell reaches me first, a potent mix of **fire** and **death** that makes a certain memory well up within me, the smell of burning flesh—

I shove it beneath the Veil as Mari curses besides me. 

“Fuck…”

“Void above.” I mutter to myself. 

Kitamori is decimated. It was a moderately large town, perhaps with a total of two hundred buildings. Of those, only a few remain standing, and those aren’t in good condition, to say the least. Everywhere I look...

_So this is...this is what a war zone looks like._

“Sayaka, Setsuna, join us.” I announce. 

The two hop down, taking Hiroto by surprise. Their eyes survey the damage, horror reflected in blue and grey. 

“They’re with us.” Mari explains. “Captain, you want us to split up, right?”

I nod. “Mari, come with me real quick. Setsuna, Sayaka, work together to save as many people as you can. Be careful for traps and ambushes and rescue everyone possible. Hiroto, please try to keep control of the people we rescue and prepare them for evacuation.” 

Everyone assents to the plan, and we split up.

“How many survivors are there, Mari?” I whisper under my breath.

She looks grim. “…From what I can tell…twelve on this side.”

_Twelve. Twelve survivors out of hundreds, perhaps even over a thousand. There may be others on the far end, but…_

_Unacceptable. Whoever did this will_ **_pay_**.

“Find them, Mari. Save them. Help Sayaka and Setsuna.”

She nods, vanishing in a burst of speed.

I stare at the devastation around me, leaning down to examine one of the ruined houses. It’s been…burnt to the ground, then knocked over by what appears to have been an explosion. Ashes scatter the floor, and…in one corner, there are a trio of scorched corpses, melted to the bone. One belongs to a child. 

…Something unidentifiable wells up in me at the sight.

I move on, drifting between houses. It’s the same scene everywhere — Fire damage. Wind damage. The heat was intense enough to disintegrate wood and flesh and char stone, but insufficient to turn everything to ash entirely. We’re not up against anything as powerful as a _plasma_ or _blackfire_ User, then. 

_“Their great equalizer, however, is synergetic magic.”_

_“The spell that synergy generated created the Great Lunarian Desert.”_

It wouldn’t be too hard, with enough mages. Fire and Wind are particularly complementary elements when used in conjunction. And the damage is far too complete, and occurred too abruptly, to have been an accident.

No, this was certainly an attack. Now the question is who. But I’m almost positive.

I continue exploring, sweeping closer to the border. Then— 

“…Fuck.”

My hand goes to the communication scroll at my belt, scrawling in a message before warping it to Sayaka. It only takes a minute before Setsuna joins me, face pale.

“…Look over here.” I say. “There’s a trail of blood droplets. Someone bled…based on the splatter and smearing, they were moving away from the village. No, there were several people here...one of them was dragged.” 

“The attackers?” Setsuna asks. I shake my head.

“No. I don’t think the village was able to hold any defense at all. Any attackers shouldn’t have been injured.” I shake my head. “Were you able to detect any residual—“

She shakes her head, already knowing my question. “Nothing except for trace signatures. They were old.” 

“Previous patrols.” I deduce.

“Wait, if there were no trace signatures from the fire, then…?”

“…Arcacia.” I say grimly. “Arcacian mages destroyed this town, and they took prisoners.”

...

After overseeing the departure of the surviving villagers — seventeen in all — and informing Hiroto of what we’ve found, we follow the trail. Though the blood runs out, the faint traces of qi left behind by someone spilling their lifeblood are enough for Setsuna to detect and track. 

“…Here we are. The border.” 

The border is marked by a large clearing in the forest, spanning several hundred meters on both sides. On the Arcacian side of the border, a dense forest shields everything from view. I know from the maps that the forest is dozens of kilometers deep, intentionally grown and cultivated to keep intruders out. 

“It goes over.” Setsuna says quietly. 

“Well. That confirms all we need to know, doesn’t it?” I ask softly.

“Captain, what do we do?” Mari asks, biting her lip. “Over the border…that would be…”

“An act of war.” Sayaka finishes. 

“…Incoming.” Setsuna mutters. “Four…I think those are _mages_.”

It doesn’t take them long. Four mages flitter out of the forest, almost casually making their way over to us. They look to be in about their teens...er, twenties, since they aren’t ninja. All male. They’re wrapped in green cloaks that don’t particularly serve well as camouflage, and are more likely an identifier. None of them feel particularly powerful. No wonder Setsuna was so unsure as to their status.

“You’d better stay on your side if you know what’s good for you.” The lead one growls out, when he gets close enough.

“We are.” I say evenly. “As should you.”

“Che, don’t tell us what to do, Lunarian scum.”

Mari opens her mouth to reply, and I quietly step on her foot.

“I’m merely interested in preserving the peace.” I say, pretending that my heel isn’t grinding into Mari’s foot.

“Hey, you should treat a woman better than that.” One of the other mages say. “And what a woman she is.” He leers at her.

“I know I’d be interested in hearing what she has to say.” The lead one says.

“Pschaw, there’s better things to do with a mouth like that.” Another adds in.

I grind down harder.

“No.” I reply, voice clipped. “She has nothing to say to you right now. We were simply interested in the trail of blood leading from our side of the border to yours. I’m positive you outstanding Arcacian Mages would never do something like break the treaty and injure or kidnap anyone, would you?”

“I prefer the blunette, myself.” One of the mages whisper, just low enough for me to pick up on.

“Mm. Nah, I want the tiny one. She looks like a screamer.”

Rage wells up in my veins, and is tampered down by an application of Ice.

“Us?” The lead mage asks. “Never. You must be mistaken, or insane. You and your whores had better keep to your side, or pay the price.”

The temperature around us sharply falls.

“As should you.” I say coldly. “ _Or I will personally_ _carve the flesh from your bodies one layer at a time and feed it to the dogs_.”

They bristle, looking disturbed. “That a threat, _ninja_?”

“No.” I turn away. “Cross the border, and it’ll be a promise, _magus_. Come, girls. Let’s find some better company.”

Wordlessly, they follow me, senses peeled for any potential attack. 

It doesn’t come. 

...

“Thank you.” Mari says, once we get out of earshot and behind the cover of our trees.

“For stopping you from saying something stupid and/or punching the guy?” I ask dryly. “You’re welcome.”

“Though you lost your temper anyways.” Sayaka smirks. “And your temperature.”

“That was a bit scary.” Mari admits. “It’s been a long while since you’ve lost your temper, and you’ve never done it while channeling Ice.”

“It wasn’t just for that.” I say, still irritated. “It served as a warning, too. You noticed how belligerent they were, I imagine. They’re baiting a fight.”

“About that...” Mari says softly. “Captain, when you asked if they’d broken the treaty and kidnapped someone…”

“They lied, didn’t they?”

“...Yeah.”

“Of course.” I sigh. “Conditional evidence, but...combined with the town, and the blood, and the missing patrols, there’s something up here. We should call in reinforcements. Arcacia committed an act of war.”

“Captain, we should retreat to Oshiroikishi.” Mari advises. “We can coordinate with the survivors there, see if anyone has any useful information, and send another messenger.” 

“…I agree.” I reply. “Let’s check around…what’s left of Kitamori one last time. Then…we’ll go.”

…

There’s nothing left at Kitamori, not for any of the living.

“…If you could give me a little time…” Mari mutters, voice wavering slightly. “I’m going to send these people off properly.” 

“At least you won’t have to handle the cremation.” Sayaka mutters under her breath darkly. The Storm User sends her a sharp look. 

“Understood, Mari.” I say, even though my thoughts mirror the blunette’s. “I’ll help you.”

Over the time we’ve known each other, I’ve come to realize that Mari is, surprisingly enough, fairly religious. She’s never explicitly brought it up — the giveaway has been her language. She never swears against the gods. It’s an interesting contrast to Sayaka, who treats religion with the irreverence she treats most anything; Setsuna, who seems to waver between faith and atheism depending on whether or not she needs sleep; and myself, who treats anything involving faith with utter indifference. 

I’ve never approached her about it, though. It’s just something I’ve noticed. Perhaps it’s the reason why she wants to send these people off, though. I don’t really get it — they’re already dead, after all — but I can tell it’s important to the girl I’ve come to regard as my best friend, so I’ll do it. 

_That’s what friends do, right?_

_…_

Oshiroikishi is known for three things: first, its proximity to the border; second, the fact that it’s a large trade center; and, third, the fact that, strangely enough, it has an absolutely massive tree in the center of town. 

And…

“Snow…?” I mutter, staring at the ground. While a bit chilly, it wasn’t snowing back in Kitamori, which is only a few kilometers away.

Mari nods, looking around as we walk through. “Oshiroikishi is a really interesting place. It snows for almost the entire year despite the general climate being relatively warm, even in the warm months. We call it the ‘Eternal Winter’.”

“Really, now?” I ask, a little surprised. “What about in the cool months?”

“It snows harder.” Mari answers with a crooked grin.

“I’m surprised you know that, you meathead.” Sayaka snarks. 

The brunette shrugs. “History is my hobby.”

“So studying old things is something you enjoy? How much time do you spend in front of the mirror?”

“Ouch.” Mari laughs, a crooked smile on her face. “Probably less than you do, to be honest.” 

The Wind Mistress grins. Despite the running we’ve done, searching through the ash-filled village, and the border confrontation, she looks like she’s walked fresh out of the shower. It serves far more purpose than just vanity, though. Sayaka’s also a perfectly capable seductress, should we need one.

And as for how she stays so clean...

“Turbulent Air...?” I mutter. It’s slight, but I can feel the faintest of breezes wafting off of her.

She winks at me. 

Over the months, Sayaka has gotten increasingly close to perfecting Turbulent Air, no doubt helped along by that Spellweaver Mentor of hers. And she’s also become increasingly more stealthy, specializing as a strange hybrid infiltrator/caster.

_No, wait, that isn’t it at all._

Sayaka’s no hybrid at all. With Turbulent Air, she can evolve into a fortress destroyer — infiltrating before tearing things apart from the inside.

I smile slightly. It looks like she really has found her place here, hasn’t she?

“We’re here.” Setsuna points out. We’ve found ourselves in front of one of the churches of the village. It’s where the Kitamori survivors were taken to, what little they were. Refugees, until they can be permanently placed.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been in one of these.” Sayaka mutters quietly to herself. 

“If you’d like...” Mari begins hesitantly, “I could lead you through a short prayer. For your teammates.” The blunette opens her mouth, presumably to say something scathing, then stops. Hesitates. 

“You know…actually, I might take you up on that. Er, if it’s okay.”

I blink, surprised. 

“Really?” Mari asks, equally shocked. “Well, sure. Captain, you’re coming in with us too, right? To talk to the people?”

“Er…” I hesitate. “…I might join you, too. In prayer.”

Even Setsuna’s taken aback by that. Mari just flashes me a warm smile. 

“I’ll be glad to have you too.”

“Um, Yuki…” Setsuna murmurs uneasily. “I’m going to go around and start setting up a seal array around the town.” 

I nod. “Go for it. Meet back here in case if anything goes amiss, or use the comm scroll.”

She disappears into the streets. The Storm Mistress watches her go, face unreadable.

“Aw. I wish she joined us. But still...” She glances around. “Well, come on in. It’s simple enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is now a corresponding Department of Records chapter for 3.9!


	82. (3.9.3) Resolve, Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder that the perspective of my characters is not necessarily mine. :)

#  **3.9.3 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Resolve, Part 3**

Quietly, we enter the church. It’s a lot less glamorous than I would have expected. Most of the room is filled with simple wooden benches, facing a stand and altar. Off in one corner is a well-kept piano. 

“Hm…Altarian, maybe…?” 

“What?”

“Oh, I’m just wondering what kind of church this is.” Mari points to the piano. “It seems like they do hymnals. That rules out all of the common denominations that ninja tend to participate in.”

“Hymnals?”

“Singing. Not really my forte.” 

“Nor mine.” I agree.

“I’m not bad.” Sayaka volunteers, shrugging. “So it’s a civilian religion?” 

“Denomination, but…yeah, I imagine so.”

“Does that mean we shouldn’t pray here?” The blunette wonders.

A small smile makes its way to Mari’s face. “Here, we are all bound by faith. So long as that holds true, neither the time nor the place of worship matters.” Confidently, she walks up to the altar, studying it critically. “Yes, this is Altarian. See these symbols here? They’re written in the old tongue, and their meaning roughly comes out to…’Lightbringer’.”

_ “Yes, Arcacians love the light. They worship it. It’s sacred to them, and although there are multiple religions and denominations thereof, almost all of them share a common love for light. If you break down some of their words — for example, spellcrafter — you’ll find light in the roots of those words. Spellcrafter — in other words, light sparker. Magic, light, and life are all intertwined concepts.”  _

I hadn’t anticipated finding an Arcacian place of worship in Lunaria, but this close to the border, and removed from ninja influence, I suppose I’m not surprised. 

Hm…

Those symbols, then, most likely mean…’God’. 

“Um…so we can pray here?” Sayaka interjects.

“Absolutely.” Mari holds her hands out to Sayaka and I. “Join hands with me.” 

We do so, taking positions on her left and right, respectively.

“Mari, what kind of faith is yours?” I ask. 

Her lips quirk up. “One of guidance, and one of hope. You’ll see. I promise that it’s not what you think it is.”

I incline my head. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“We’ll start, then.” Mari bows her head slightly. Sayaka and I follow her. 

“Spirits, please guide our paths as we walk roads not travelled before. In our time of need, please light our way and illuminate the darkness, internal and external. We humbly request that you accompany us as we seek our missing comrades. Thank you.”

“…Wait, that’s it?” Sayaka asks, bewildered. 

“…Yes?” Mari asks, releasing our hands. 

“Huh. I’d expected some kind of prayer for safety, to make sure that everyone’s okay, something like that…?”

The Storm Mistress shrugs. “That’s our job. Our Gods aren’t here to do things for us. What has happened has happened, and what we can change…we shall. They can’t promise us anything but their guidance and comfort.” She glances away. “Otherwise, what would be the point of all this? There’s no value in a puppet life. We’re the ones who have to take control. All faith can do — all it  _ will _ do — is sustain us through our travel. Nothing more, nothing less.”

There’s a bit of silence following that. 

“…Although some might beg to differ.” Mari mutters darkly. 

“…You know, I can respect that.” Sayaka says, sounding surprised by her own words. “Huh.”

Mari laughs. “Faith isn’t an excuse, or a trick.” Her hand runs almost reverently over the surface of the altar. “It’s just something that exists with us. We can call on it, but it owes us nothing. Yet we still have it anyways, and if we hold onto it when we have nothing else...that is a power all on its own. It’s what we have faith in that matters. My faith in you guys…” She grins. “That matters to me. And something like that has real meaning, don’t you think?” 

We stand there quietly for a few minutes, lost in our thoughts.

…

“Nothing?” I ask Sayaka quietly, as we regroup an hour later. She shakes her head, looking grim.

“Their spirits are broken. All I was able to understand is that the attack came without warning.”

“Mm.” I frown. "We’re at a dead end in terms of concrete information. I’m not sure what else we can accomplish here.”

“Maybe we can head back to Kitamori.” Sayaka suggests. “Let’s see what else we can find, now that we have a better idea of what exactly we’re looking for. And we might…be able to find the missing ninja, too. Or at least a hint as to what happened to them. We’ve at least confirmed that they made it here. What happened to them?”

I nod. “Agreed. The townsfolk here can take care of the survivors. If we want to avenge them…we need to find out what happened.”

“Right. I’ll call Mari here, then.” Sayaka says. “Meet me outside the church.” 

…

After quickly checking up on Setsuna — she’s busy writing a massive seal array — the three of us head over back to the ruins. By the time we do, it’s already decently dark.

“Let’s try to construct a timeline, shall we?” I suggest, my voice low. “It’ll be small, but…it might help.” 

Mari nods. “At about fifteen minutes after noon, we detected and intercepted Hiroto. He was on horseback, riding towards Alune to let us know that the town had been attacked and destroyed.”

“Right. We didn’t notice anything amiss prior to then. So the town had been attacked, but…not right away. Hiroto noticed something was off, went to check, and found his town destroyed. That means Kitamori was destroyed sometime in the morning, before noon.”

Suddenly, Sayaka flinches. “Be right back. I need to check something.” She darts away from us, towards one of the boundaries of the ruins.

Mari and I glance at each other quizzically.

“Anyways…after that, we escorted him to the ruins, and began searching for clues and healing the survivors. That concluded around two?” I say. “We sent him and the survivors to Oshiroikishi, then went to the border. There we confronted the mages…and departed at about two-thirty.” 

“From there, we spent a few hours burying the dead and resting — Sayaka, in particular, was a bit winded from all the healing she had to do, and Setsuna helped with construction of the grave.” 

“Oshiroikishi is only about eight kilometers away. The survivors had managed to get into Oshiroikishi by then, so we met up with them at the church at about six.” 

“We did our thing and came back out here…at what’s approaching eight at night. Why are we even out here again?”

I shrug. “There are a couple things I wanted to check. We might miss them, but we can always come back tomorrow. For this mission, though, time is of the essence. If we’re able to find it today, we can leave right away.”

“What are those things you’re looking for, exactly?”

“Five objectives. Who did this, how they did this, why they did this, where the border patrol went, and who took them? We’ve already sent Hiroto on his way, so at least Alune will know what’s going on. That leaves us free to figure out the rest.” 

“Okay.” Mari accepts my logic easily. “So what can we find that will give us the information we need to know?”

“…Besides kidnapping their patrol and interrogating them?” I ask dryly. “Well, I’m not sure. We might be able to identify the ‘how’, at least, even if we have to wait until tomorrow to do that. That’s the easiest. Other than that…I’m not sure what we can find. It really depends.”

“So we’re basically blind for now?”

“Yes.” 

“Then—“

Whatever Mari’s about to say is abruptly cut off by a sudden sharp ripple of qi. Sayaka’s  _ Turbulent Air _ . 

“Hurry, Mari!” I shout. Nodding once, she vanishes in a haze of speed. I quickly run after her, Wind enhancing every step—

...

“What the fuck are those?” I hiss.

Sayaka winces, blood rapidly staining her clothing. “I don’t know. They…they blindsided me as I was checking the perimeter. Right through my resistances, too. Their claws…they’re enhanced, be careful!” 

Facing us down are a dozen wolves, glowing crimson eyes and matted dark-grey fur. With how dark it is, they’re tricky and challenging to see. Silver-white claws glimmer with qi. 

“Animals, huh?” Mari glares. “Then—“ 

Her Storm Cloak flares up, the smell of burning ozone filling the clearing. That’s right — animals are naturally afraid of her even passively. So her flaring her qi—

The lead wolf howls at her, apparently unaffected. 

“…Shit.” Mari says, looking fascinated. “I didn’t think that was possible. Think I can keep one as a pet?” 

“…I doubt it.” I say dryly. “Fighting retreat. Let’s try to kill them all, though. The villagers couldn’t handle these.”

Intelligent predators that use qi? That’s terrifying. 

…But so are we.

“Sayaka, can you still fight?” I ask, as the wolves widen their circle. 

“Absolutely.” She replies. “…My wound’s resisting healing, though.”

_ Of course. _

“We’re going to fall back to Oshiroikishi. Mari, you’re too weak to fight these things head-on. Stay behind us unless it looks like we’re going to be overwhelmed.”

“I — okay.” 

_ Mari can detect the lie in my voice. She knows I don’t think she’s weak — hell,  _ **_she_ ** _ knows she isn’t weak. But I don’t want the Arcacians to have any idea of what our trump card is capable of doing, if I’m correct in thinking that these wolves are some kind of mutation sent by them. I don’t know what their magic is capable of in regards to surveillance, so it’s best to assume that they can see everything we’re doing. _

“Sayaka, get in the air. Your cap is…what, ten meters?”

“Um…about there.”

She’s picked up on my strategy, at least. Cap refers to the highest height one can easily cast simple techniques at targets on the ground without losing or aim efficiency. My own is eight.

“Go.” 

The second they start moving to implement my commands, the wolves pounce, splitting up to surround us as one lunges directly at me.

Qi flowing through me, I take in a short breath and release the Wind in a tightly compacted stream, piercing right through its left eye and brain.

_ One. _

Sayaka brings down a compacted hammer of air upon two of the wolves targeting Mari, killing one. The other dodges, claws scraping through the dirt. She aims to follow up before being forced to fly farther up as one of the wolves jump after her.

_ That wolf just leapt ten meters vertically. _

I use a burst of wind to repel two wolves into the air as they lunge towards me, then quickly draw both of my blades, infuse them with wind energy, and hurl them at my targets.

_ Three and four. _

Moving backwards, I yank my blades back to me and briefly clash with one of the wolves, qi-enhanced claws scraping against my own empowered blades. Despite my reinforcement, it’s still strong enough to put up a brief struggle before I overpower it, cleaving through both claws and wolf in the same strike. 

_ Five. _

“Sayaka!” Mari calls out, alarmed. One wolf leaps off of the back of another, approaching the Wind Mistress with alarming speed—

Sayaka seizes it somehow with nothing but the air and  _ hurls it _ up into the air, the animal quickly leaving visible range—

Beneath her, the stone cracks as if hit by an invisible force.

_ …Six. _

Finally, the wolves show some fear, starting to back away. Sayaka grins savagely, her Wind Qi flaring.

“ _ Die! Scattershot!” _

She releases an uncountable number of air particles that serve as bullets, traveling fast enough to be blurs. They slam into the wolves and dirt in waves, throwing up dust and smoke.

I pulse my qi through the area, then relax as a corpse hits the ground a dozen meters behind us. 

_ …Twelve. _

“So much for holding back.” I say dryly. “Sayaka, help me seal the corpses, then let’s head back. Mari, please keep an active eye out for any potential threats.” 

She nods, right eye going electric blue.

It doesn’t take too long to clean it up, although we’re forced to burn the six corpses that Sayaka got to with her  _ Scattershot _ attack, as they’re little more than a fine slush. Every attack individually had very little power, not too much more than a reinforced punch, but when the same being is hit by dozens of them in rapid succession…

…And when those beings also don’t have any form of innate reinforcement…

_ Sorry, wolves. Wrong prey.  _

“Let’s leave.” I reply. “Before more of those things, or worse, show up.”

…

We meet up with Setsuna, and reconvene in an inn near the center of the town that’s generous enough to give us two rooms for the cost of one. It might have something to do with Sayaka being the one in charge of renting out the rooms and the innkeeper in question being a medium-aged male, but…

Anyways, Setsuna’s apparently managed to finish the basic framework for a town-wide array. I’m not surprised — she’d prepared for something like this, anyways. Even then, it took her hours for just the framework. 

_ But the results, should she need to use it, should be spectacular. Especially now that Mari knows how to power her seals, removing a lot of the energy constraints from Setsuna’s work. She can do some incredible things now. _

We let Setsuna know of the events that have transpired in her absence.

“I recognize those.” She says, sounding surprised. “They’re Silver Wolves, native to the Arcacian forests, named such for their claws. They have an unusual ability to channel qi to them, which makes them particularly dangerous. Worse, the qi also seems to have given them unusual levels of intelligence. They’re actually a major pest to civilian Arcacian settlements near the border on account of frequent raids.” 

“So they aren’t some kind of modified organism designed to kill ninja, then?” I ask. 

She shakes her head. “It’s possible it was just a coincidence. They might’ve been attracted by the scent of death in the air. And wolves don’t exactly respect the border.” 

I suppress a small smile. “They don’t. In that case, we’ll chalk that up to…coincidence, then?” 

Setsuna nods. “I mean, it’s possible they were directed over here. We don’t know. But there’s a possibility, and not even an unusual one, that they weren’t.”

Sayaka seems to agree, standing up and testing her side. “Ahhh…there we go. It’s nice not having lacerations. My clothes are ruined, though…”

The sealer kneels next to her, carefully inspecting her torn clothes. “They sheared through the reinforcement seals, huh?”

“Like butter through a hot knife.” Sayaka confirms. 

“…A result of the qi…?” The black-haired girl muses. “But why? It resists our qi fine, even mine. Even a swing from Yuki would get slowed, even if just a little.”

“Just a little?” I ask, blinking. “The adaptive force seals you’ve written into our clothing would outright  _ stop _ at least a few hits, even if I plug a bit of Wind into it.”

She smiles bashfully. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Mari snorts, rolling her eyes. “Well. That’s just another mystery, then, isn’t it?”

I nod. “I suppose, but not an important one. We’ll figure it out eventually. Moving on, Sayaka, why did you go to the perimeter in the first place? What did you have to check so urgently?”

Her eyes light up. “Ah! That! I wanted to see why there hadn’t been a full forest fire. With a conflagration this size…”

“There should have been damage to the forest. Of course.” I shake my head. Kitamori had been right in the middle of the clearing. Something strong enough to level the whole town should have caused damage. But it hadn’t.

“And what’d you find?” Mari prompts.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Oh. Oooh. Sayaka, are you meaning to tell me that there weren’t any marks at all on any of the trees?”

She nods. “Yeah, exactly so.” 

Slowly but surely, a picture begins forming in my head.

_ Focus on the bigger picture, Yuki. There’s something obvious you haven’t thought about. Come on. You already know everything you need to know. You just have to…realize it. _

_ You know exactly what happened! _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Climax Inference time!
> 
> ...Wait, wrong genre?


	83. (3.9.4) Resolve, Part 4

#  **3.9.4 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Resolve, Part 4**

_ Contained damage. Fire and Wind. Signs of Arcacian attack.  _

_ Ah! _

“What?” 

“What direction was the explosion in?”

“The explosion?” Sayaka asks. “Who said anything about that?”

I shake my head. “No one. But answer anyways. Where was the focal point? Where did — we’ll call it a spell — where did the spell start?”

Mari bites her lip. “I didn’t notice anything like that…”

The other two agree.

“That’s because there wasn’t one.” 

_ That’s right. I remember now. Debris scattered everywhere. Absolute, senseless destruction. _

_ It had felt like houses had just exploded. _

“You’re going to need to explain that.” Sayaka says, sounding perplexed.

I close my eyes. 

_ “Their great equalizer, however, is synergetic magic.” _

_ “The spell that synergy generated created the Great Lunarian Desert.” _

A single spell razed a place so thoroughly that it became a desert. 

_ A single spell? _

“There wasn’t a focal point in the destruction. There wasn’t any kind of identifiable pattern, either. Both of these are unnatural, aren’t they? There was no external damage outside of a specific zone — ie, all of Kitamori.” 

“Ah.” Setsuna breathes out. “Synergetic magic.”

“…What?” Mari and Sayaka ask.

“Synergetic magic is the work of a combination of mages to cast a spell together. The process amplifies their power and allows them to cast things beyond their abilities. By far the most famous example is the spell that created the Great Lunarian Desert in the First Arcacian War, created through the teamwork of about two hundred mages.” 

“W-Wait.” Sayaka yelps. “You mean  _ a single spell _ razed an area so thoroughly that it permanently scarred the land and climate of an area equivalent to the size of  _ all of Alune _ ?!”

“Yes.”

“W-What the fuck!? Wait, but we’ve been taught for the longest time that mages are a lot weaker than us!” 

“Individually, that’s mostly true.” I agree. “That being said, though…they have a lot more people than us, and the tools to use that numerical advantage to their benefit. Don’t underestimate them, Sayaka.” 

“I suppose not.” She says faintly. 

“The spell that the Kitamori attackers must have used…” Setsuna muses. “Well, it must have been something like a  _ firestorm _ . A contained area of flame, propelled along by a cyclone of wind. Yes, that would be consistent with the damages…no focal point, fire and wind damages, not extremely intense, but more than enough to kill and ravage typical homes…”

“Wait, what!?” I ask, surprised. “You already knew—“ 

She shakes her head. “No. I only just realized it now. But I’m familiar with some of the spells that Arcacians might use. Magic comes up a lot when you search through old legends for as long as I have.”

_ That’s right…she’s been doing that for more than a few years now, hasn’t she? And there’s also her background to consider. _

“Wait!” Mari points a finger at Setsuna. “So you had a real hobby this whole damn time?!” 

The sealer shrugs, looking sheepish. “Erm…I guess so, huh?” 

Mari hurls a sofa cushion at her, forcing her to dodge. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier!? Have you been drawing all this time just to make me happy!?” 

“Um…yes?”

An unidentifiable sound escapes Mari’s lips before she lunges at the girl, pillow in hand. Setsuna springs to her feet and flees the room, the Storm Mistress chasing after her.

“…What just happened?” Sayaka asks me, bewildered. I shrug, equally confused. 

“I wish I knew.”

_ It seemed like they were just playing around, though? _

Well, while we’re alone…

“I’m surprised you went in for prayer.” I say, grabbing her attention. A wry smile forms on her face. 

“I could say the same for you.” 

I shrug. “It seemed important to the two of you, and I was curious.”

“…It was.” She admits, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Still worried, huh?” I say quietly. She glances at me, surprised.

“Mari didn’t tell you that, did she?” 

I smile. “No. I figured it out myself.” 

“You’re improving.” 

“But seriously, Sayaka…how can I help you?”

“Help me? I’m not the one who needs help. It’s all of my former teammates who need help.” 

_ She looks miserable. _

Moving closer to her, I draw her to my side, an action she doesn’t protest in the slightest. 

“T-Thanks, Yuki.” She sniffles. “I’m sorry. I’m not normally like this.”

“The circumstances are a bit exceptional.” I agree.

“I don’t even get it.” She mutters. “I don’t even really care about them. I was the one who left them behind. Why does — this kind of thing  _ happens _ , I know that, so why does it bother me so much?!”

“Because they were yours.” I say simply. “And...because as much as you might try to hide it behind all of the snark, you do care, Sayaka.”

“Ugh.” She grimaces. “I...I guess so. It just...I don’t want it to hurt anymore, Yuki...”

I shake my head. “Accept those feelings, Sayaka. Don’t turn away from the truth. Caring about someone...losing them...it hurts, yeah, but that’s how you know you’re  _ alive _ . And being able to hurt means that you do care. Never give that up.”

“You did, though.” She says quietly. “When you sealed your feelings.”

“I was a fool.” I reply. “And I fell back in love with her, anyways.” I murmur under my breath.

She pulls back, surprised.

“You did—?” 

“...Yeah.” 

She sighs. “Damn it.”

“What?” I ask, confused.

“You’ve really not noticed, have you?” She asks, a wry smile on my face.

“...What?”

The pretty blunette smiles ruefully. “I’ve been courting you for  _ months _ , Yuki.”

I blink.

“Oh. That explains a lot.”

I mean, I’m not caught completely off-guard. I’d suspected for a while. But there’s a difference between suspecting and having her confirm it to my face.

She laughs, apparently unfazed by my surprise. “You’re real fun to be around, you know? I enjoy being with you. So I’d just wanted to see if I could take that further.” She shrugs. “But you don’t feel the same way, right?”

_ Power-dueling in the Academy. Meeting Hikaru in the library. All the projects and exercises and training we did together. Our little competition in the interrogation exercise. Fighting her again and enjoying our ramen date together. Dueling her and watching her progress with Turbulent Air. Developing Heavy Wind together. Fighting her in the Fourth Star Examination. Working with her to subdue the magus.  _

_...Watching her get hurt.  _

_ Murdering that magus in cold blood. _

“I care deeply about you, Sayaka. But not romantically. I’m sorry.” 

In the end, I can only reject her feelings for me. Accepting them would be a lie, because it’s true — though I think she’s a wonderful person to be around, I also know that she isn’t the one for me.

_ My heart belongs somewhere else. _

She smiles, seeming oddly...happy? “I understand, Yuki. Do you think we could stay friends, then?”

I smile back at her, happy to see that the despair that plagued her has lifted, even if just for a moment. 

“Of course.” 

...

“I hope everyone slept well.” I say the next day. “We’re going to go back to the village and try to see if we can confirm our suspicions. Then we’re going to go to the border and see if we can pull some more information out of them. They don’t know Mari can detect lies, so we can attempt to bait some information out of them.”

“Great.” Sayaka groans. “Sounds absolutely lovely.” 

“Setsuna’s going to stay behind to continue working on the array.” I add. “We can contact her with the communication scrolls if we need to, and all three of us are capable of high-speed movement. If something goes amiss, we’ll be back very fast, so let us know if something happens or feels off, alright?” 

The sealer nods. 

“Right. Let’s find something to eat here, and head out.”

…

“Find anything?” I ask the blunette.

“Yeah. It’s like you thought. I went up and checked — there’s no pattern, even from the air. But there  _ is _ a perfect circle of destruction, with only debris breaking the pattern. Setsuna’s right. It was a synergetic spell.”

I frown. “That’s sufficient information, I think. Now…was this a rogue mage attack, or a concerted Arcacian effort? And why? What was the point of this?”

Mari freezes. “…Captain, what if the missing ninja patrol was here? And the Arcacians attacked the village to kill them?”

I blink. “How would Alune know that they were missing? It took us a week to get here. It’ll take us a week to get back. Two weeks for the actual mission…”

“…Oh. Classified information.” Mari mutters, sighing and turning away. “Hypothetically speaking, though, if during seventh-star-alert status patrol teams were declared missing a week prior to their return in order to justify sending additional patrols, increasing the safety margin…well, hypothetically, something like that might be an explanation. But I wouldn’t know, of course.”

I stare blankly at her.

“W-Wait, so they might not be missing after all, is what you’re saying?!” Sayaka blurts out. 

“The first team is. They’re a week past the mission timeline.” Mari says. “Um. Hypothetically speaking. That’s why we were sent in, instead of a…well, more relatively normal team. Hypothetically, of course.” 

“That’s why there’s more than one team missing.” I say, understanding. 

“…But yet we haven’t met up with the other team.” Sayaka observes. “So…if we go with Mari’s  _ hypothesis… _ ”

“…Then the team before Sayaka’s old team is missing in action, and the reason Arcacia attacked Kitamori was to kill Sayaka’s old team.” Mari concludes. 

_ No. That’s not quite it, is it? _

“The blood trail.” I say quietly. 

The blunette slumps. 

“…So they’ve been kidnapped.” 

“At least…any survivors.” I say quietly. “But we can take this analysis a little further. Looking at our timeline, Kitamori was attacked sometime in the morning. How could they have missed the blood dripping from whomever they kidnapped? The ones who destroyed Kitamori  _ wanted us to know _ that they’d done so. Why?”

“…They want us to fight.” Sayaka whispers. 

“That’s the only thing I can think of.” I agree. “When you combine the behavior of the border mages from Arcacia…”

“Not good.” She whispers, distraught. “…In that case, I hope my old team is dead. Otherwise…they’re being tortured for information. Damn it!” Her fist smashes into the wall next to her. “Why!? Why now!?” 

“Sayaka!” I snap. “Not the time!” With effort, I catch her next swing. “Focus, Sayaka! If you want to avenge them…we need to figure out what to do next!” 

“I…” With visible effort, the Wind Mistress chokes down her next words. “Okay. Fine. We have to stay here, don’t we? We’re the only surviving patrol. Losing Oshiroikishi would be bad. It’s the village closest to the border in this sector, now that Kitamori has been razed. And we’re the best warning for any…fuck, any attempt at invasion.”

“Yes.” I agree quietly. “We’re…going to abandon the objective to rescue any survivors. They’re…I’m sorry, Sayaka, but they’re a secondary priority now.” 

She nods tightly, closing her eyes. 

“I…I understand.” 

_ “Five objectives. Who did this, how they did this, why they did this, where the border patrol went, and who took them?” _

With this, we have everything we need to know. Some of it is pure speculation, of course. It’s possible that Arcacian didn’t do that, or that this is just the results of a rogue element of Arcacian mages. It’s possible, sure.

_ It’s just not likely.  _

“Right now…we need to milk what information we can from the border mages.”

I pause.

“…And…damn. Well. You know what? I think we should bait the border mages into a fight.” 

“Huh?!” Mari asks. 

“Interrogation.” I answer her implied question. “We have too many assumptions here. And…they’re going to…”

Oh.

I’ve been treating that particular conclusion far, far too casually.

“Guys….” I say faintly. “Arcacia is waiting for an excuse to go to war.” 

_ We’re going to go to war. With Arcacia. A military force that fields five hundred thousand magi. _

Fuck. That is…that’s not good. 

_ I hadn’t really considered…the scope of this assignment. But our actions here might decide... _

“Yes?” Sayaka asks, confused. “We’ve been over this?” 

I glance at her. “Think about what that means. Really think about what that means for us.”

“…Oh.”

_ That’s right. Our actions here…might play a hand in the outcome of the Third Arcacian War. _

…

“We’re here.” Mari murmurs, some time later. The border looks deserted, but we know from experience how fast that can change.

“Right.” I mutter. “Stay on guard at all times. Sayaka,  _ you told me you could handle it _ , so…I trust you, alright? No  _ matter _ what they do, don’t lose it.” 

She nods. “I know. I won’t.” 

It doesn’t take too long of us sitting at the border’s edge for the mages to show up — eight, this time. Four of them are the same as before, but the other four…seem a little stronger. Older, too. More experienced. Real warriors, not a couple of scrubs playing at being big magi. 

_ Not that any of that means much. They utilize the external energy. Mana. Their internal energies are a lot less developed as a result, so who knows how good they are?  _

“What the hell are you all doing so close to the border? Fuck off, would you?”

I take a single, measured step back, a polite smile on my face the entire time.

“There. Is this more comfortable for you?” 

“Cute.” One of the men says dryly, stepping up dangerously close to the line. “Look. Go back to where you came from…or cross the border already so we can kill you.” 

I tilt my head. “That’s rather forward of you. And I wouldn’t cross the border. That would be a violation of the treaty.”

“A violation of the treaty?” 

The group of mages laugh.

“You ninja don’t care about violations of the treaty. Just like the last set.”

“…The last set?” I ask sharply, already knowing what’s coming next.

“Yeah. The last set.” 

Unceremoniously, the mage points sideways, behind him— 

_ It’s as I thought. _

The bodies — the  _ corpses —  _ of eight ninja lie up, strung up in front of the tree-line. Sayaka lets out a soft gasp, confirming my suspicions. 

_ Why would they show us that? What do they want from— _

**_Oh. I see._ **

The men in the back draw their wands.

“Mari!”

A bolt of lightning leaps off of her outstretched hand, striking the first man and leaping between them in rapid succession. With them as close as they are, there’s no way for any of them to dodge. 

“ _ Mikesa!” _

But still, that doesn’t stop the last man from managing a hasty block with a translucent magical shield. The lightning crashes into it and fizzles out, shattering the shield in the process.

_ “Anaka!” _

He moves to back away, simultaneously casting a variety of spells. But by then, my own qi has finished shaping.

A tiny needle of Ice flies out from my fingers, rapidly expanding as it does so to become a gleaming spear that impales him right through the chest. A qi string attached to the back lets me yank him over the border before I deliver a crushing blow to his head that knocks him unconscious. 

“Would you look at that?” I ask rhetorically. “Arcacia just broke the treaty. Mari, are they dead?”

Sayaka unceremoniously reaches out and uses her Wind to shove the fallen mages onto our side.

“…Three of them are.” She says. “The rest are alive.”

“Good. Secure and interrogate them. Sayaka, seal their wands.” I hesitate. “No, let’s get away from the border first. Mari, ensure that they’re unconscious, and let’s go!” 

…

“Oh, hell.” Setsuna murmurs when she sees us.

“Hell indeed.” I agree, dumping the bodies onto the inn room. They caused a bit of alarm as we walked through the town, but our status as obvious ninja warded any busybodies off. “Setsuna, help Sayaka. Strip them of everything, and drug them all with a paralysis serum. Afterwards, Sayaka, I want you on lookout above the village. Setsuna, keep working on that array, but stay within the town. Don’t get caught out.” 

“Understood.” 

“Mari, with me.” I grab the collar of one of the mages from yesterday’s border dispute. He’s the only one from that day that survived the bolt. “It’s interrogation time.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a tonal jerk, but incidentally, the original draft of this story had Yuki accepting Sayaka's confession.


	84. (3.9.5) Resolve, Part 5

#  **3.9.5 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Resolve, Part 5**

“What the — what the _fuck!?_ You bastards! Let me go!” 

“Good morning.” I reply simply. “Would you look at that? You crossed the border. And I believe I made a promise to you.” 

“You — _you_ —!”

“You’re a magus, aren’t you? Attached to your magic?” I say cheerfully, twirling a piece of wood in my hand. His wand. 

_No, not just a piece of wood. There seems to be some kind of jewel embedded at the tip. How strange._

“You — _my wand_ —“ 

“Ah, Arcacians. Completely useless without this stick. Well, magus. Live by your magic—“ 

I smile savagely.

“And _die by it_.” 

I force his left eye open, raise the wand, and—

…

“That wasn’t interrogation.” Mari says quietly. 

“It wasn’t.” I agree easily. “There are four other magi, all of whom are more senior. In particular, I’m interested in the one who was able to actually defend himself. Maybe he’s the leader of that particular patrol? Either way, we need more information.”

" _Gaaaaaaaaaah!”_

“Gods above.” I shake my head. “Bring the skilled magus to me.” I order. “I’m going to go shut him up.”

_It wasn’t interrogation. It was vengeance._

…

Experienced combatant or not, the senior magus is still clearly intimidated by the sight of the tied-up magus silently screaming, his wand protruding from his left eye.

“He was really loud.” I say conversationally. “So I did a little surgery, cut some things out…well, maybe magic can save his voice. I personally doubt it.” Humming cheerfully, I restrain the paralyzed man with some rope. “You look better without a spear through your chest.”

“…What do you want?” He asks, averting his gaze from that particular corner of the room. 

“Your honest answer for some questions. In exchange, I promise your safety from my team. Of course, should you choose not to cooperate with my questioning, I will be forced to systematically shave every ounce of flesh and meat off of that thing over there—“ I point at the still-screaming magus, “—and shove it down your throat. And that will be step one.” I say pleasantly. 

“As you may have deduced by now, I am a healer. I can torture you for as long as I want, and it will be _a very long time_ before I give you the sweet release of death. You might also be thinking that, should you stall long enough, the upcoming Arcacian invasion may save you.” A flicker of surprise registers in his eyes. “Yes. I know about that. Now, I understand you might fancy yourself a patriot. If the method you choose to stall with is to avoid answering questions, or by giving me false answers to questions…needless to say, you will not enjoy the remainder of your time at my hands. And I’m very, very inventive. And the torturers of Alune are even _more_ inventive than I am. Choose to answer my questions truthfully, and I’ll make things much quicker, and much less painful. So make your choice. What will it be?”

There’s a short pause.

“…Fine. What do you want, ninja?”

“Great.” I say brightly. “Let’s talk about that upcoming invasion. When’s it coming?”

“Twenty hundred hours, today.” He says, clearly reluctant. But, according to the cues from Mari, truthful nonetheless.

_In eight hours._

“Give me details. Where? How? Does this have the backing of the full Arcacian Government?” 

There’s a bit more hesitation. 

“Stop stalling.” I say pleasantly. “Or the cripple becomes blind in both eyes.” 

“Of course the full Government knows about it.” He replies sharply. “It’s an invasion.”

“I was simply checking to see whether or not this was a full act of war, or merely a rogue element.” I say simply. “Now, the other questions?”

“…A full linear attack.” The man says. “A front that stretches across most of the border, moving simultaneously and converging and flanking around hot spots.”

Mari doesn’t react. Not a lie.

_It’s an interesting strategy, that’s for sure. With their numbers, it could work. Divide and conquer. The villages won’t band together to fight against Arcacia because they’ll all be dealing with their own problems. And by taking control over surrounding land, Arcacia can easily set up long-term sieges. We need to get this information back to Alune and the other villages…or we’re going to be in trouble._

“Good.” I say. “Now, I want information on your magic. Tell me all the trump cards that you magi have.”

“…Trump cards?” He asks, honest confusion on his face.

“Don’t fuck around.” I retort. “Trump cards. Tricks. Everything you can use to bring to bear an advantage. Like synergetic magic.”

“Synergetic magic?” He muses. “Ah. I see. Hm…no.” 

“No?” I ask. “Are you sure that’s what you want to say?”

He glances away. “I can tell you all that other information because you knowing about it won’t matter. But something like that? No. Fuck you.”

“Fine.” I say, sighing irritated. “A promise is a promise. Well, we’ll start by—“ 

“May the Lightbringer damn you!” He snarls, his aura suddenly spiking. “ _Lunaamike—“_

A bolt of lightning goes into and through his head, splattering steaming gore around the room. 

“…Thank you, Mari.” I say. She sighs heavily, lowering her outstretched arm. 

_That must have been a suicide spell, whatever that man was trying to cast._

“…They can use spells without their wands.” I note, almost as an afterthought. “That’s useful to know. Now, how do we stop them from doing that while keeping them in good enough condition to interrogate?”

“Mi-ke…a…” Mari mutters under her breath. “Twice now, those syllables…is there a standardized language for those spells…? But…they didn’t seem related at all…?”

“As important as it is to decrypt whatever language they spellcast in…” I say dryly, “We really need to figure out as much as we can. We only have a few hours before we need to leave.” As I speak, I casually draw my sword and stab the other magus in the room right through the heart. “We have three more interrogations to go, Mari. Let’s get this over with.” 

…

 _Synergetic magic. Wandless magic. Silent magic. Sorcery. Archmages. Telepathy_ . _Familiar spirits._

Thankfully, the other mages aren’t quite as resistant to interrogation, and I gather the information I seek. 

Wandless Magic — magic without wands. Silent Magic — magic without an incantation, an _aria_. Sorcery — magic without either of those, and apparently quite hard to do. Simple enough.

 _Archmages_ are basically top-tier magi, approximately equivalent in status to our ninth-star ninja. There’s about two hundred Archmages, apparently, and each of them are forces to be reckoned with. 

_Telepathy_ is the ability to talk to others…through the mind. I’m not entirely sure how that works, but it’s apparently possible between mages who specialize in the craft, and isn’t at all easy to learn. 

And Familiar Spirits are the most esoteric of them all. Apparently, they’re the…incarnation of the elements? I hadn’t found out about them until the last person, who only knew of it by passing.

Through experimentation, we also find out that the qi-suppressing serum ninja regularly use on other ninja works to stop wandless magic. Presumably, it interferes with their ability to interact with mana. 

All in all, the process takes about two hours. Upon finishing the interrogations, I execute all the magi with a sword to the heart. 

“This town…” Mari says sadly. “They’re…they’re going to be killed, aren’t they?”

Grimly, I nod. Setsuna’d told the town mayor yesterday about the circumstances, but she hadn’t been taken seriously. After that, all she could do was work on the sealing array to fortify the town as long as possible. Sayaka went to do the same thing, and was taken rather more seriously, but now it’s too late. Civilians won’t be able to evacuate faster than the march of the Arcacian army. And where would they evacuate to? Oshiroikishi is a large town. Any city that would be fortified adequately — ie, via having a position near a ninja village — is much too far away. Alune is the closest there is, and it’s seven days away for _ninja_ , to say nothing of how long it would be for a full evacuation.

_They might be okay, though. There’s nothing of military value here, so—_

_Aw. Fuck._

We’d just taken and killed off the mage patrol at this part of the border. There’s no way that they won’t search this village. Even if we leave now, there were far too many witnesses. They’ll raze the place to the ground.

I shake my head, banishing the little guilt I feel. Even if we hadn’t taken the patrol here…our presence in the area alone would have been sufficient.

_No. There’s nothing we can do for them now. The loss of this town will lead to several thousand deaths. The loss of Alune will lead to hundreds of thousands, if not millions._

_I have to prioritize here._

“Hey…Yuki.” Mari says into the silence. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure?” Her tone is a bit concerning, so I take her seriously.

“I have a little sister.”

I blink.

“You do? I...if I remember correctly, didn’t your mother die giving birth to you?“

“Yeah, that’s right.” The brunette sighs heavily. “Adopted. She’s adopted. And she’s qi-capable. But I don’t want her to be a ninja.” 

“…Huh?”

She sighs. “You know how all Users are required to go into the Academy, right? Even if they don’t pass, they have to try.” 

“Right.”

“It changes you. It isn’t just academic and physical preparation — they change your mindset. They change who you are, shave away naivety and innocence. Compassion and love.” 

I hadn’t thought about it quite that way, but she isn’t exactly wrong, either. Civilians can’t be ninja, not even the strongest of them. They’re too…weak. Too scared. So the Academy takes that and changes it, strips most of the fear and weakness away. Oh, every person still has their own, different weaknesses, but you can’t graduate without a certain developed mindset. If they didn’t do that…there’s no way anyone could be able to be an effective ninja. 

“I don’t want that to happen to her.” 

“So she’s a User? What’s her affinity?” 

She sighs deeply. 

“Plant.”

…Wait, what?

“She’s an aberration, one with control over plants…”

I’ve never even _heard_ of that type of aberration. But the possibilities are clearly immense.

“She has a secondary Earth affinity as well. Her natural qi potency is quite significant. But…two things. Firstly, her mindset is completely wrong to be a ninja. Secondly, she has a fairly poor constitution. Being a ninja would probably get her killed.” 

I’m less convinced. She could become a caster instead, develop control, and use it to detect and kill people from long range. The problem then would just be mindset. 

But that isn’t my place to say. I’m sure Mari’s thought about all of this already, so if she’s still chosen to keep her sister from fighting, well, that’s her choice. I’ve had similar thoughts about Setsuna, to be frank.

“What’s her name?” I ask instead. 

“…Ayaka.” Mari finally admits after a long pause. “Ayaka Aono.” 

I file away Mari’s surname to look into later — at least, I think it’s also her last name. 

_Mari Aono, huh?_

A thought occurs to me.

“So…you don’t actually have a gardening hobby, do you?” I ask, remembering the times I’ve visited her house. All of those flowers, those must have been—

“Yeah, Ayaka made them, not me. They’re beautiful, aren’t they? And they smell so nice. She changes them every once in a while. She has a real talent with design, practically an art…she could become a famous civilian, I think.” Mari rambles on about her. 

It’s surprisingly endearing to hear. Perhaps that’s just the pleasure of having her open up to me the same way I have to her. 

“You must really love her.” I say, after a few minutes of exposition. 

“I do.” She says fiercely. “And that’s why…well, one of the reasons why I’m a ninja. If I work hard, take on all the dangerous, important missions, and succeed, she doesn’t _have_ to be a ninja.”

She must have struck some sort of deal with the higher-ups. Something to make her be a ninja, if it meant that Ayaka could be free from that life. After all, Mari could threaten to simply drop out of the Academy via no effort, and so could Ayaka. Then, Alune would have lost two very strong aberrations. Mari’s deal lets Ayaka avoid going through the trials of the Academy and effectively keeps her as a civilian. Someone who can live a…relatively normal, peaceful life.

“I understand.” I reply. And I think I do. After all, it’s what I had, briefly, wanted Setsuna to do, prior to graduation. I’d been scared, scared of losing her. 

But never had I voiced that. It would have been an incredible insult to everything Setsuna has worked for. I’m not sure how she would have handled me saying something like that to her face. 

Even so…I’d still wanted her to be safe. Despite all of that. 

“I keep her in the basement when company’s around.” The Storm Mistress continues. “It’s...not as bad as it sounds...but I know she wishes that she could get out more. But...I want to keep her safe. Physically and mentally...”

“So you’re...trusting me with this information?” I ask. “...Thanks, I suppose, but why? It’s not like you’re going to be—“

I stop, watching the way her face twists, conflicted.

“No. No, Mari. Don’t do it. Please.” 

She grimaces. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t. This is the other reason I became a ninja, Yuki — to protect people. If…if I turned away now, ran away and let the people of Oshiroikishi die, I could never, ever forgive myself.”

“Damn it, Mari! If you do this, _you’ll_ be the one to _—_!”

“Then I’ll have tried.” She murmurs wearily. “Then I’ll have tried, and if I die, I do so without a guilty consciousness and the weight of being a coward.” 

She’s tired, but resolved. I can’t convince her. The fear of death is meaningless to her. 

“Your sister, Mari—“

“You guys can take care of her.” She flinches, glancing away. “You…will probably do a better job than I did.” 

“…I refuse.”

She whips her head towards me, hurt in her eyes. “Y-Yuki, you—“ 

“Because I’m staying with you.” I say simply. 

_Even if—_

“W-Wait, but…”

“What are you going to say?” I glare. “That I’ll die?” I point at her. “Don’t even think about it, or I swear by the gods, Mari, I’ll kick your ass to Alune!” 

She cracks a half-smile. “…I guess that’d be unfair, huh?” 

“Yes. It would be.” 

“But…my sister, Yuki. Someone needs to—“ 

“…Are you seriously telling me that you didn’t prepare _anything_ in the event that we’d all die?” I ask, already knowing the answer. “You’re not stupid. I know you would’ve considered the possibility. And if you love your sister at all — and I _know_ you do — then you wouldn’t have left her to stay forever in the case that you didn’t come home one day.”

She grimaces. “Sometimes, I hate how smart you are. Are you really sure about this? There’s…no going back.” 

I raise my fist. “Mari, if you ask me that one more time, I’m going to have no choice but to punch you in the face. I’m not going to abandon you, stupid! You’re my best friend!” 

_That’s right. Setsuna’s my partner. Sayaka’s my rival. And Mari’s…Mari’s my best friend. She’s always looking out for me. There’s no one else I’d rather have at my back._

_So it’s about time I do the same for her!_

She closes her eyes. 

“Your best friend, huh…? Then, thank you, Yuki.” She whispers. “Thank you. It’s selfish of me to ask you, but…please, don’t leave me to this alone.”

I nod.

“I won’t. That much, I promise you.”

  
  



	85. (3.9.6) Resolve, Part 6

#  **3.9.6 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Resolve, Part 6**

“We’re _what!?_ ” 

“Wind Mistress Sayaka Hoshiko.” I reply tonelessly, invoking her full title. “This part of the mission is purely on a voluntary basis. You may return home if you choose at no penalty. What do you—“ 

“Oh, shut up.” She says sourly. “You know I’m going to stay with you, dumbass.” She glances away, a dark look on her face. “And they killed my team. I’m going to make them _pay_ for that.” 

I nod. “Understood.” 

_Revenge isn’t a good motivator, but I’m not really one to talk._

“And, Setsuna—“

“I’m staying too.” She murmurs softly.

I stare her down. “Setsuna—“ 

“None of you can operate the array I’ve been working on for the last two days. You’d be surrounded, overwhelmed, and killed in moments. Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn’t. And I don’t want to leave.” She meets my eyes. “I won’t.”

_Of course not. Damn it._

“…I understand.” I say softly. “If it’s what you truly want, then…” I turn away. 

_It would be beyond hypocritical for me to force Mari to let me stay, but refuse Setsuna the same opportunity. Not if it’s what she truly wants. This close to Arcacia, I should have known she wouldn’t turn away._

_The question now, then…is how can I keep her alive?_

_...I don’t think there’s a choice but to use_ **_that_ ** _, is there?_

“First things first.” I mutter. “We need to send a message to Alune regarding what we know. Mari, take care of that—“

The Storm Mistress disappears, knowing how important even a few extra seconds could be.

“Sayaka, take to the air again. Setsuna, seals.”

The Wind Mistress glances at me, curious.

“What will you do?” 

In response, a ribbon of blue qi trails down my leg. 

“…Territory preparation. Stay away from me unless it’s an emergency. I’m not going to be safe to be around.” 

“…But, Yuki, if you use your Ice in such an obvious place…” Setsuna whispers. “Then Alune—“ 

“I know.” I say softly. “I know that. But...I can’t afford to hold back any longer. Not if holding back lets you all die. To me, that would be unacceptable.”

And neither of them can refute that.

Sayaka steps forward and kisses me on the cheek.

“Then...when we get back, know that the youngest Wind Mistress in a decade stands with you! And I’m sure that the only Storm Mistress of Alune will vouch for you, too! And, uh...” She glances at Setsuna awkwardly. 

“The revered “Goddess of Mercy” and Alune’s soon-to-be Steel Spellweaver, “Iron Fist” Takeshi will also support you.” The sealer says, looking mildly amused. Then, very deliberately, she leans forward and kisses me on the cheek, as well.

Sayaka gapes.

Setsuna smirks at her, then walks out of the room without a backwards glance.

“...Huh. That was...out of character.” 

Sayaka grins. “No, I don’t think it was. I’m glad to see that things between you really have gotten better, then...I wasn’t sure for a while.”

I smile. “Thanks, Sayaka. For everything you’ve done...for both of us.”

She smiles back. “Of course, Yuki. What are friends for?” 

…

Once she leaves, I quickly strip my shirt off and unseal the Etheria container that Hikaru has left me — at least, the half that I keep sealed into my chest. 

_Click._

Opening it reveals a syringe partially filled with golden liquid. Released from the seals on the case, the sense of raw, undiluted power floods the room. It’s intoxicating, tugging at all of my senses. Before I lose myself, I slip deep into my Ice before lining up the syringe and injecting myself right over my heart.

 _Haaah. Even like this, it’s still painful. I can feel it, the way my body is burning up from having this much_ energy, _like it’s slowly being destroyed and put back together. If I handled this without this much of the Veil…I don’t know if my mind could take it._

 _Hikaru was right. I really am a special case. Regeneration is absolutely a requirement, but you need to have an incredible resistance to pain to absorb anything like this. Even someone like my master would have been in agony, and she had enough pain tolerance to_ **_set herself on fire_ ** _and remain in control during the process._

_Without that tolerance, the pain would break you._

I don’t inject all of it — I don’t think I could take it. I wind up injecting less than a fifth of the syringe into myself, but even that much makes me feel unbearably full, somehow. But with all the pain and discomfort…comes a sense of _power_ . Like a current of Storm running through my entire body, burning and destroying but also _empowering._

_Is this what Mari feels like?_

Falling into a crouch, I rest my hands on the ground and project a tiny fragment of my strength. The ground underneath me frosts over, a thin layer of Ice coating the floor. 

_Alright. I still have my control. It’s a bit strained, but…thankfully, Ice isn’t something I’ve ever struggled with. I can maintain control over this element, at least. Then—_

Ice races up the walls of the room like a spiderweb, rapidly blocking off the door and frosting over the windows. It’s a start. But I can do so much better. My qi races through the earth, spreading underneath the earth and growing, always growing. 

**“Frozen Garden.”**

The words come instinctively to me without even trying. Is that what this technique is? The Ice spreads, crystallizing through the ground. 

And I can _feel_ it. Every pulse of my qi shatters the earth, and the Ice grows, consuming. But controlled. I’ve mastered my element, after all. I had to, or it would have consumed _me_.

 **_Focus_**.

With every minute, my life force wanes.

But my territory grows, pulsing with the beat of my heart.

Slowly, my consciousness slips into a trance, into my Mindscape…

_Just sleep, sleep, and everything will be alri—_

...

No. Isn’t there something I’m leaving behind. Something I...absolutely can’t...leave...

A friend? No. Lover? No. What is it? What is it I can’t leave behind...?

_“I...allegiance...master’s best interests...not turn against her...Hikaru...”_

_First, the participants connect their qi directly through the use of blood. After that, they recite an aria that both parties find meaning in — truly mean, in other words, so you can’t lie — and this creates a sort of vow that exists directly in your spiritual core. You can’t break it. Like…you literally can’t. It becomes a fundamental part of you, the same way a personality trait is._

An absolute order that can not be broken.

**Wake up, Yuki.**

_…_

I gasp, my breath misting out in front of me.

_Fuck! How long has it been!? …Three and a half hours?!_

The Ice pulses underneath my palms.

_…_

I probe my own body. The excess Etheria is nearly depleted, leaving me back to my original state…mostly, anyways. My body feels rather…different, somehow. 

_Empty._

_Ah, hell._

I almost lost myself to the Ice. I was so close. If it wasn’t for Hikaru, and the blood vow I swore to her…I would have been gone. Despite all my progress, a single slip-up…almost took everything away. But my Ice would not have...would not have cared about Hikaru. And so it wasn’t allowed. 

…

_I wonder…if she knew that would happen…? Is that why she Vowed to me…?_

I shake my head. It doesn’t matter now. What matters now is the upcoming combat. But then…why is everything…why does… 

…

_Fuck, my mind feels fractured…I can barely even think straight!_

_Please, focus!_

_No, that won’t work. Simple determination isn’t sufficient to fix this. Whatever I’ve done to myself has scarred me far deeper than just the surface._

I plunge into my Mindscape, slipping past my Veil, and…

_Oh. This is…this is really bad. This is really, really bad._

The frozen garden in my mind has shattered, little islands of Ice floating in the empty void. 

_No wonder I can barely think. My Spiritual Core is…it must have been broken when the Blood Vow forced me out of my Ice. Something that intertwined with me so intimately, being smashed so suddenly…_

_Right. Aberrations are natural elements, but with that comes a closeness that other elements don’t share…that, combined with the Life Energy…_

_I’ve broken my Spiritual Core again._

However, the situation isn’t unsalvageable. Intertwined between the islands are bonds of pink-and-blue energy holding everything together, as shattered as everything is. Hikaru’s Life Energy — from that ritual we did, when I first reshaped my Spiritual Core.

_I see. They’ve integrated somewhat with my qi, but even then, her influence is too strong to be absorbed entirely. Perhaps that’s for the best — with what I’ve done to my own powers, I may not be able to use any of my Aberration at all._

_So…how do I fix this?_

…Ah hell. 

**“** **_Absorb.”_ **

Slowly, laboriously, I call my Ice to me. It’s slow to respond, proof of just how damaged I am, but as more of my power flows into my avatar…

_I feel…a bit more whole again._

…Now, for the challenging part. Reasserting my Spiritual Core—

A forbidden thought occurs to me, one that I’d briefly considered the last time this situation happened to me. 

_‘If I can break and reform my Core…can I adapt my own affinity…?’_

I concentrate.

_My friends…Setsuna, Sayaka, Mari, Hikaru…I want to protect all of you. I want to be strong enough for the upcoming battles._

_I can’t make myself stronger. I can’t make something exist that isn’t there, after all._

_But I can change my abilities. Even if I can’t make myself more power, I can change how I use that power. This is a unique opportunity…and I’d be a fool not to take it, what with the trials coming ahead. So…what should I do?_

_‘My point is, your aberration can change. It will always be Ice, but the way you manifest it…that can change.’_

What can I do right now? What am I best at?

…Defense. Whereas my Wind is primarily an offensive element, and my Water element is primarily a utility element, Ice is a defensive element that manifests in three main ways — regeneration, reinforcement, and materialization.

Of these, the aspect least important is my regeneration. Thanks to Hikaru as well as my own work, my regeneration is frighteningly powerful. Although vital, I don’t need it to be as strong as it is. 

My reinforcement is the same. Unlike my regeneration, however, I don’t have any kind of supernatural booster. It’s best not to mess with it, especially since base physical parameters mean a lot in combat.

Lastly, materialization. This aspect…is the bulk of my combat abilities with ice. My _Permafrost_ and _Crystallization_ are horrifyingly effective abilities, especially when I go out of my way to poison my blood with a sedative or qi-suppressant. 

I don’t want to lose any of those abilities. If anything, I’d like them to be stronger. 

_So…shifting strength out of my regeneration, and putting it into my materialization. Not too much, though. I don’t want to lose any of my powers. I need them._

_I want to be able to protect my loved ones._

_Here we go._

**_“Frozen Garden!”_ **

…

“Did it work?”

I’m greeted by Setsuna’s voice as I slip out of my trance. She studies me, stormy eyes glimmering with worry. “Ah, it did. I’m glad.” 

“Did what work?”

She points at my chest. Glancing down, I realize a seal’s been attached to me, one actively pumping _Etheria_ into me.

_Hey…isn’t this—_

“Hikaru’s qi.” Setsuna says by way of explanation. “It’s a healing tag. I only have the one, but…well, you would have died if I hadn’t used it. so…”

“I would have what—“ 

The sealer nods, expressionless. “You’d been dead for a few minutes when I got to you. If I hadn’t…you were in a deep trance. You wouldn’t have even noticed. You didn’t, did you? You didn’t know that you were…”

_The Veil is truly a scary, double-edged sword._

“I didn’t.” I admit.

_I’d better not do that again. After the first time, I’d thought I understood the concept enough to avoid that — I hadn’t crushed my soul, after all. Did my body just naturally pass on from the damage I dealt to myself? Or was it absorbing my soul into my avatar?_

“Yuki, I don’t want you to do these kinds of things anymore…” 

I shake my head. “I can’t promise that.” 

The sealer grits her teeth. “Yuki…if I wasn’t here, you’d be dead.”

“I know.” I reply. “I know…but I didn’t have a choice.” I gesture around me, to the frozen room. The door is melted — presumably, how Setsuna got in. “I used too much of my power, and paid the price for it.”

Her face softens. “...Using your Ice...takes that much out of you?” 

“Yes. It does. If I wasn’t blood-bound to Hikaru…” I grimace. “Death would have been the better option. And even with that, the conflict shattered my soul. The process of healing _that_ is what stopped my heart.”

“…Void above…” Setsuna murmurs. “Then, _please_ don’t do this again without a spotter.” 

“I won’t.” I promise. “Until I can make this safer, I won’t.” 

“Well…so what exactly have you done, then?” She asks. “I can feel your qi _everywhere_ , and the snow has intensified outside…but I can’t tell what you’re doing.”

I smile, clenching my hands tight. “To be quite honest...I’m not sure yet. I’ll have a better answer for you in a bit, when I understand just what I’ve done to myself.”

“Huh?”

“I had to put my soul back together.” I reiterate. “It wasn’t a perfect job. I’ve changed.”

She stares at me. 

“Do you still…your reason to live…”

I nod, knowing what she’s asking. “I do.”

That particular part of me has been intertwined with just about everything I am. I couldn’t forget it if I tried.

She nods, smiling slightly. “Then…you can’t have changed that much.” 

“I hope so, too. Now, hush. I need to figure out what’s going on inside me.” Obediently, she falls silent, seeming to slip into a trance of her own. With that taken care of, I concentrate on what I can feel from myself. 

_As I had thought, my power level hasn’t shifted. I’m slightly stronger from the little chunk of Etheria I haven’t consumed from the injection, but that’s all._

_I think my capabilities have shifted a little, but I can’t tell without a full test. I don’t have the time for that, now. Because—_

**_Ping!_ **

Wait. How do I know—

Footsteps thud loudly from outside before a snow-covered Sayaka steps through the open door, glancing around. “Yuki! They’re here!”

“Who!?”

“The magi! They’re…surrounding the village!”

“What?!” Setsuna gasps. “But…we’re supposed to have more time—“ 

“They must have finally reacted to the patrol we took out.” I mutter, having already anticipated this possibility. It’s why I had Sayaka in the air in the first place. “Let’s get out of the house. Where’s Mari?” 

“After she took care of the messages, she started putting the villagers into lockdown. She’s on her way.” 

“Good.” I sigh in relief. “Numbers?”

“About four hundred. There seems to be a three-to-one soldier to mage ratio, based on the clothing and weaponry…” 

“Four hundred to four, huh…?” I mutter. While the town has a civilian guard, they’ll be useless against the war-ready forces Arcacia are fronting. “Well. At least we’ve had advance warning. Setsuna, the array you’re using…I need to know exactly what it does. It’s your standard special village defensive array, correct?” 

She nods. “Triple-barrier, multiple detection line, and suicide.” 

“Explosive, right?” 

“Yes.”

“W-Wait, what’s this about suicide?” Sayaka blurts out, surprised. 

“If our mission fails, Setsuna’s array will nuke the entire village. Hopefully, it’ll kill them too. You understand, right?”

She nods, reluctantly. “Can’t be taken alive.” 

“Yes. But that’s a precautionary measure only. Last resort. I will protect you guys.” I glance out at the frosted windows, my sixth sense tingling.

_And that should be…_

“I’m here!” Mari comes into sight, circling around to dart inside. Her clothing is damp from what I presume is melted snow. “Captain, Sayaka told me. What’s the plan?!” 

For a moment, I just stare. 

Mari, one of the strongest people I know. My best friend. Prideful, reckless, but also unusually kind and fiercely loyal. She has a sister that she wants to protect, and she dreams of being a hero. 

Sayaka, my rival. Sarcastic and prickly at times, but also surprisingly gentle and fun to be around. She still doesn’t really know why she wants to be a ninja, but I’m going to ensure that she’s able to have the choice, when she figures it out. 

And…Setsuna. My partner. My first love. As quiet and as oblivious as she can be, something about that gentle naivety of hers makes me want to protect her. She’s my reason to live, and I’ll always be shielding her from harm.

_I won’t let any of you die. Even if…_

“Captain?” Mari asks. “The plan?”

“The plan?” I ask. “Well, first we’re going to—“ 

An unnatural chill seems to fill the air. Mari and Sayaka don’t seem to detect it, but— 

_…Three times, now? Something’s a bit strange._

Setsuna curses, uncharacteristically viciously. “That’s…they’ve started their spell, Yuki.” 

“I know.” I say softly. “Let’s go outside and see what’s going on, shall we?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Net Results of Soul Tampering:  
> ~50% weaker regeneration (bringing him back down to about his 3.3.1 levels, still very high).  
> Sharply increased sensory capabilities.


	86. (3.9.7) Resolve, Part 7

#  **3.9.7 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Resolve, Part 7**

In the short time we had been in the house, the weather worsened significantly from the light on-and-off snowfall we’d been experiencing. And, once outside, Mari and Sayaka flinch, apparently able to detect the growing, hazy power surrounding us.

“Fuck.” Mari sums up succinctly. “Okay, we need to disrupt their spell, right? So we have to target the mages—“ 

“No.” I reply. 

“Huh?” 

“I had my suspicions…it’s still a dangerous assumption to make, but…I’m something like ninety percent sure. That’s an acceptable margin of error to me. Setsuna, what _spell element_ are you detecting?” 

“Water.” She says quietly. “Rather, a subset of it — _ice_. It feels like…a blizzard.” We both flinch. “There’s a bit of Wind seeping in, too.”

_Four._

“Yeah, thought so. Remember? Magic is based on _mana_ , which relies on the outside elements. And with how cold it is right now, I bet they’d struggle to use that same fire spell. So instead of fighting against nature, they’re simply going to use a different synergetic spell. Ice.” 

“We need to stop them now then, don’t we?!” Mari yelps. 

“We will.” I say, amused. “Sayaka, Mari, please stealthily make your way to one of the spell borders and wait for the signal. Assume that they may detect you at any time due to the unknown properties of their magic, but try your best to remain undiscovered.”

“The signal?”

“Yes.” I reply simply, unhooking the communication scroll holster from my belt and throwing it to Setsuna. “You’ll know it.” 

“Alright, Yuki.” She says easily. “Consider it done. Good luck.”

“Good luck.” 

The two disappear into the worsening storm.

“…You’re not going to do what I think you’re going to do, are you?” Setsuna says, voice barely reaching me over the winds. 

“What, counter a synergetic spell?” I ask cheerfully. “Well. In that case, that’s _precisely_ what I’m going to do.” 

“Yuki, that’s a hundred mages…” 

“Ninety six.” I correct. 

“H-Huh?”

_And that’s five. Five things I shouldn’t have been able to sense, but did._

“I can sense the life force of every single magus powering this spell.” I say quietly. “I know what their cumulative power feels like, Setsuna…and I find it _wanting_. Not a single one of them understands this element, the Ice they bring to bear. They just want to use it. And I’m not going to let them. Setsuna, if I die before I break the spell, please order Mari and Sayaka to attack. Otherwise, do not interrupt me in any way.” I pause. “And…if it looks like I’ve lost control of myself…do not hesitate to put me down. Understood?”

She stares at me, face blank. Then she steps forward and gently, but firmly, slaps my cheek. 

“I’ll do the rest, but the last? No. Good luck, Yuki.” 

“…This is important, Setsuna.”

She stares at me, unamused. “I know.” 

_I don’t think I can change her mind on this._

“…Fine.” 

Jumping onto the rooftop, I let the cold air wash over me.

_Right at home, huh?_

Alune rarely snows. And even if it did, I’m not able to embrace it as much as I can here. Here, in the middle of nowhere, under impending attack…here, in the heart of a literal storm. That’s where I belong.

I smile savagely. 

_Let’s put on a little show for these mages, shall we?_

I close my eyes and force my will into the Ice surrounding me. 

_Infiltration complete._

_Aha. I see exactly what’s going on here. It’s a three part spell. The first two aspects involve the creation of a field, the spell boundaries, and call upon the surrounding Ice. The third aspect creates a wind storm. Together, these elements create an especially cold, targeted blizzard. It would kill every civilian here, snuff out every speck of warmth, and leave the town a frosted tomb._

_That’s all? The power of ninety-six people, and that’s all you can manage?_

How…disappointing. 

The coolness of my emotions serves to let me further influence my surroundings. I dip deeply into my Veil, calling upon my Ice once more. 

_I have two approaches here. I can either rupture the spell boundaries…or I can counter the Water and Wind threats. Of those, popping the spell boundary is easiest. I could do that by flipping the spell onto one of the mages. The chain reaction_ that _would cause would be devastating to the spell._

_But hell, if I was going to do that, I could’ve just had Mari and Sayaka—_

_Hm. This spell boundary grants awareness. The magi know they’re there._

“Setsuna.” I call out.

“Y-Yes?”

“Write to Sayaka. Tell them to retreat to the village center. They’ve been detected.” 

“Understood.” 

I sink back into my trance, ignoring the steadily rising wind. 

_Overloading the boundary would be really hard. I’d have to match their output. They’re individually pretty weak, but there’s ninety six of them. I could easily do it with my Etheria, but that’d be a tremendous waste. So instead of doing that, what if…_

I can feel the fragile chains holding the spell together. Synergetic magic…these bonds, though, feel quite weak. That isn’t surprising — synchronizing with so many people must be hard, even if it magnifies their power.

_But that same strength becomes a weakness in the right hands._

Alerted to my presence once more, the magi begin trying to snuff me out with sheer willpower. It works in the sense that I have to actively focus to resist the sense of crushing power surrounding me with my aura, but that distraction weakens the synergetic bonds of the spell further. 

I’m forced to stifle a smirk as I feel ripples of discontent flood through the bonds. They’re so very faint, but I can tell what they are. 

_These magi...don’t know how to control their auras._

Connected by the spell bonds, their emotions leak through. It’s small, subtle, but it appears that their manipulation of mana taints it with their own power, their qi. Their ‘chakra’. How interesting.

_But even someone as sensitive to energy as Setsuna couldn’t identify every magus the way I can._

There’s two reasons for that, I think. Firstly, these upstart mages are clumsily wielding _my_ element. I could rip control from them without much effort at all individually, magic or not.

The other reason? It seems that my sensory capabilities have improved. This is undoubtedly a result of the soul tampering I put myself through — the only question, now, is what the cost will be. Or has been.

I frown, irritated, as a weak pressure forms around me again. These stupid mages think they can brush me off like a bug, do they? Then—

Plunging with my willpower into the whirling qi I can sense, I—

_Ninety-six bonds, each tied to the Ice which is tied to me—_

—identify the bond that ties my attacker into the spell and force a surge of hostile power down through the bond and—

_Ninety-five bonds, each tied to the Ice which is tied to me._

_Then ninety-three, though I did nothing to them. I assume the two closest mages have left the spell-circle to assist._

A ripple of fear spreads through the spell bond. I, in turn, intentionally radiate my own feelings, that of confidence and a little bit of bloodthirst, but primarily a bitter, icy indifference.

With three losses, I can already detect the spell bond growing fragile. I doubt it will take more than...ten more losses at most before the field destabilizes entirely.

I target another magus with another spike of willpower, blasting him from the spell bond as well. Then another.

_Ninety-one._

My next attempt, though, is surprisingly blocked. Narrowing my eyes, I try to force harder, but find myself nearly shoved out of the circle myself. 

_They’re pooling their power to repel me. It’s stalled the spell out, but..._

My eyes widening, I disengage from the spell entirely and flip off of the rooftop as a concerted effort from the mages causes an invisible force to crash down onto where I was, shattering the building into a thousand pieces of kindling.

“Girls! Evasive maneuvers!” I snap out, Mari and Sayaka having arrived shortly before the attack. “Mari, with me! We’re going to launch an offensive! Sayaka, once the field drops, take Setsuna somewhere safer where she can manipulate her seals without threat! Stay on the ground prior to that, they have air control!” Quietly reinforcing myself, I zip past another pillar of force. 

“Yuki! I can locally disrupt the field and take her now!” 

“Then do it!” I dodge another attack, then snarl as I feel the magi begin trying to cast their storm again.

“Mari!” 

“I’m here, captain.” The crimson-eyed woman says from above me, crouched on a rooftop. “Permission to stop holding back?”

“Granted. Go, Mari.” 

A blast of force ripples from her, sending snow flying everywhere as the wood underneath her shatters into pieces. When it clears, there’s nothing left behind but a faint electric-blue blur, a few hundred meters away. 

_Gods above._

Behind me, a blast of Wind ripples out as Sayaka emits a massive pulse of qi.

_I see. She’s using the properties of Turbulent Air to force temporary control over the air around her._

“Let’s go, Setsuna!”

“Yes!”

Satisfied that the other two are safe, I rapidly make my way after Mari. 

…

Unsurprisingly, the mages have abandoned their spell circle in favor of containing the force of nature that is Mari, moving to cut her off. When I get there, she’s barely visible as a blue blur, rampaging her way through the front line of mages. Even my trained eyes can only just keep track of her as she darts nimbly around and _through_ people, body and blade blazing with electricity. 

_I’ll leave Mari with the mages. She has the widest safety margin against them. So…I’ll fight the civilian soldiers._

As they realize I’ve arrived, they begin swinging their guns towards me. I respond with a sharp pull on the Ice I can feel beneath the surface of the ground, and jagged blades erupt through the dirt and through their legs. Their screaming is cut off as I run past them, drawing my enhanced steel blades through their throats. 

Thanks to my field of Ice and improved sensory abilities, I can roughly gauge the locations of everyone over my territory. Tracking them, I move to ensure Mari isn’t blindsided or surrounded as she takes on the mages themselves, cutting through would-be snipers and reinforcements with ease.

_Magically strengthened guns or not, if they can’t hit me…now that I know to dodge, they aren’t concerning in the slightest._

One of the soldiers unhooks something from their belt and hurls it at me. I narrow my eyes and stomp my foot, a pillar of Ice bouncing it high above me as it explodes.

_Personal explosives, too? They really are funded quite well._

Tracking a sniper as I finish dispatching the soldiers closest to me, I force a blade of Ice to slam through the tree he’s stationed in. The sturdy wood doesn’t fall, but the shaking forces him to miss. He isn’t able to reload before I sheath my blades, unseal my bow, and shoot him through the head. 

Continuing to move about, I wreak havoc amongst the civilian soldiers, separating from Mari to give her space to work with. 

_These civilians also can’t handle my archery. I can fire at a rate vastly exceeding their single-shot rifles, and am able to move fast enough to make it nearly impossible for them to get a bead on me. On the other hand, they certainly can’t dodge—_

A bullet whizzes past my cheek so closely that it nearly draws blood. _Despite_ the speed I’m moving at.

Turning around, I watch a mage dressed in green robes casually discard a firearm that he’s picked up from one of the fallen soldiers before drawing his wand, a silent spell leaving his lips. 

_Sensing_ something coming at me, I unseal my bow and vault away as an explosion rings out at my location.

_Dangerous. There was almost no cue, there. If I hadn’t become able to detect magic, at least a little, then…_

“ _Ratazanaa._ ”

A wave of mud erupts from the ground, threatening to bury me. Unimpressed, I call up a wall of Ice to shield myself— 

The mud splatters against the wall, and the Ice melts. Eyes wide, I leap back — thankfully, melting or not, it managed to stall the wave long enough for me to get away safely— 

And block a jumping overhead strike with a rapidly drawn sword. I flinch as the blow hammers into my guard and breaks the ground underneath my feet before forcing him off me with a kick. Cringing, I stumble away, transferring the blade to my other hand.

_That fractured my arm and both legs, too. What the hell…?_

As he lands, though, I call on my will and force a spike of ice from my field, through the earth, and— 

“Gaaaah!” 

It erupts through the mage’s right foot. Quickly, I seize control of the qi, of my Ice, and thread it through his limb—

His lower leg explodes in a shower of Ice and blood. 

**“Ahhhhhhh!”**

His hand scrabbles for the wand that he’s instinctively dropped, trying to cast a spell. As his fingers close around it, however, my arrow thuds into his forehead. 

Panting, I fire a second arrow through his heart to ensure that he stays down before retreating into one of the nearest trees.

_Hopefully everyone else is doing better than I am._

I’ve only had twenty seconds to catch my breath and heal my injuries before being forced to move by another sniper. We engage in a brief duel that ends with an arrow through his shoulder, knocking him out of the tree before snapping his neck on the ground below.

As he hits the ground, a massive wave of Fire surges up several hundred meters away. Flinching, I reinforce myself in a swirling storm of Ice and duck behind a tree. The heat washes off harmlessly, but…

Concerned, I start stealthily making my way through the trees, discreetly assassinating a few soldiers and one mage who has the same idea as me with precise arrow shots when an incredibly powerful pulse of electricity ripples through the soggy ground — _the melted snow from the fire earlier made the ground wet_ — snuffing out dozens of lives in an instant. 

More alarmingly, the shock shatters the trees, sending me falling to the ground. I’m able to easily keep my balance despite it, though, landing safely on the ground.

Now, there’s only one other person left in the vicinity. Without hesitation, I make my way over to her.

“Looks like I was right to stay in the trees.” I say wanly. “That caught me off guard.” 

_But she could detect me with her own sensory abilities. There wasn’t a risk of crossfire._

The Storm Mistress turns to look at me, blood splattered over her clothing. “How many left, Yuki?” 

“…Two hundred seventy eight, by my count.” I reply. “They’ve split into four main groups, it seems. We’ve just cleared the northern sector, the side closest to the border. It seems that Sayaka is harassing the eastern and southern fronts, steadily moving towards the middle of them, and Setsuna—“ 

A wave of power ripples over us as the second and third layers of the hemispherical barrier go up, glittering a pale blue. The third barrier stretches a decent amount past the village limit — past where we’d anticipated the magi setting up their spell circle. The second barrier stops at about halfway into Oshiroikishi. 

Based on what I can sense, that second barrier protects all of the villagers. It seems that Setsuna and Mari had evacuated them to the inner limits of the town to put them behind a wall. Good for them. 

And as for the other thing I can sense— 

“Every single person of the attacking force is trapped within the two layers. Let’s aim to capture or kill all of them. Well, capture mages only. There’s no point in capturing the civilian forces.” 

“Must we kill all of them, captain?” She asks. I glance at her. 

“Yes. The village can’t hold these prisoners, and it would make them more of a target for Arcacia. We’re…already going to struggle taking them home safely.” I say quietly. “As it is, we’ve only bought time for—“ 

…Wait. Wait just a moment. 

_Isn’t this…an opportunity…?_

I shake my head. It’s something I can think about later, once this mess is dealt with. 

“I understand.” She sighs heavily. “Well, I’m still good to go. Let’s go support Sayaka.”

“Are you sure?” I ask. “You’ve been burning through a lot of qi.” 

Wordlessly, she turns her back to me and pulls up her shirt. Three bright seal arrays glow with a dim blue light, channeling power into her. Setsuna’s work. 

“Alright.” I reply. “Target the mages first.” My gaze drops lower. “...You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Y-Yeah, why?”

“Your hands are shaking.”

She looks down at them, unsurprised. “...I really...don’t like what I’m doing right now.” 

I shake my head grimly. “What person would want this—” 

Sayaka’s power spikes tremendously, then, a gale of Wind buffeting Mari and I from two kilometers away. Eyes wide, we watch as she seems to sprout white wings that glow blindingly bright, darting around in the air to dodge a dozen spells, cloaking herself in raw power. Skimming the top of the seal barrier for a moment, she completes a deceptively lazy loop before diving towards the ground at breakneck speed— 

A wave of pure, unadulterated force travels through the earth, absolutely obliterating it even as a massive pulse of Wind erupts from ground zero. The shockwaves rebound against the barriers, straining them with high-pitched whines before bouncing back and crushing everything within. Trees shatter, houses splinter — the earth itself quakes, hit by the power of a falling star. Mari and I almost lose our balance as the shockwave rams into us, reinforcing our bodies and skidding along the dirt.

Abruptly, a section of the third barrier shatters like glass, broken by the sheer power it contained. 

_What the hell was that?! That was…that was a full magnitude_ **_above_ ** _my strongest attack, for sure!_

Once we’re able to gain our footing again, Mari and I run towards the source of the attack. As we grow closer, the terrain grows more treacherous, massive faults having rent the dirt and soil. Even closer, and we’re forced to climb as the debris has stacked up, broken bodies and my own crushed ice field joining the piles. And when we crest that— 

“What the fuck…?” Mari murmurs. 

“Gods above…” 

A massive, roughly circular shaped crater hundreds of meters in diameter and several dozen meters in depth greets our eyes. At the bottom lays Sayaka, motionless save for the shifting of the white wings on her back.

“Sayaka!” 

Mari races down the slopes, qi shimmering around her in her haste. I follow after her, sliding along on materialized Ice. Thankfully, the Wind Mistress begins stirring upon our approach. 

“….Ugh… _Falling Star_ still takes too much out of me…” 

“What an incredible power...” I murmur. “Mari, we need to take her and get out of here. Sayaka, are you okay?”

“Ah…gen _tle!_ Y-Yes, I’m fine, but my legs are…fucked.” 

That’s one way to put it. I can see she’s been busy healing herself, but a closer look reveals that her limbs are definitely broken in multiple places, and that’s just from what I can tell from the outside. 

I glance upwards. “One hundred and six…”

_With a single technique, Sayaka just wiped out one hundred and seventy two people. That was more than everyone else combined._

Mari, aware of the significance of that number, blinks, surprised. 

_And…!_

“Fuck.” I whisper. “Mari, get her out, _now._ Behind the second barrier. I’m going to check on Setsuna.” 

Mari’s eyes widen. “Ah, hell. The barrier, right?”

I nod sharply, complete my aspect shift to Wind, and race towards where I can sense the weak pulse of my partner’s qi.

…

“…Hey, Yuki.” 

“Setsuna!” 

I run towards her. She’s collapsed in one of the houses within the second barrier — even with her pulsing her aura for me to find, I’m only able to directly detect her once I get within a few dozen meters of her. Her qi signature is that weak. 

“What happened?” I palm her cheek. She feels a bit cool to the touch. Without hesitation, I bring neutral qi to the surface— 

“Absorbing the backlash of Sayaka’s spell was…harder than anticipated. Even with the battery array Mari powered.” 

“You’ve overstrained yourself.” I mutter. “I’m amazed you were able to withstand that explosion at all.”

_She’s not directly connected to the array any more. At least, that’s what I’m sensing. While connected, she’s able to make the barrier adaptive, and thus be stronger and more energy-efficient. It’s how she had the barrier hold up as well as it did._

_But the backlash from Sayaka’s Falling Star technique burnt through her body and damaged her coils. It isn’t something I can heal right now. I’ll need every scrap of Etheria I have in case of an emergency, and there’s no good way to sneak out my backup._

_And I’m physically incapable of taking an action that I know will reveal that I’m able to manipulate it, thanks to the presence of the Blood Vow. Fuck. Saved by it, but damned by it, too._

“W-Well...”

“I’ve got her.” Mari announces brightly, making her way into the house. Sayaka’s cradled in her arms, cringing every step that she takes.

“How’re you doing, Sayaka?”

She winces. “Ah...I’ve seen better. My legs are really messed up. It’s going to take me at least half an hour to fix them.”

“That bad, huh...?” I muse. For someone trained under Hikaru to take that long for a healing…it must be really bad.

I glance at Mari. “I don’t suppose you have any massive army-killer techniques in your pocket?” I ask. “Sayaka and Setsuna aren’t in any shape to throw another one of those around.”

The former is badly hurt and suffering second-degree qi exhaustion. The latter is suffering from third-degree qi exhaustion. On the other hand, Mari’s uninjured and mostly full of power, and I’m about the same.

She shakes her head. “No. Not without putting myself in the same condition as them.” She gestures at our two injured teammates. 

I nod. “So we’ll have to face them directly. Annoying, but...alright. The third barrier has been breached, so our goal is to stop them from escaping through it.”

Mari nods jerkily, gaze low. “Alright. Let’s...finish this.”

  
  



	87. (3.9.8) Resolve, Part 8

#  **3.9.8 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Resolve, Part 8**

“Are the numbers the same?” She asks, as we walk out of the house that we took temporary refuge in.

“Yes. Hold on.” I fall to my knees, willing a block of Ice to surge up from the field beneath the ground. “I can’t believe they haven’t detected that they’re all standing on my territory yet. Any ninja worth their salt would have noticed the second they touched it.” 

“So what are you doing now?”

“Shh. I need to concentrate for this one.” Closing my eyes, I send my consciousness into the Ice, feeling for the pulses of life that our enemy gives off.

Then, when I’m certain I’ve got all of their positions locked down—

Mari flinches as a massive pulse of qi erupts from underneath our feet, spreading rapidly towards where the western contingent of Arcacian fighters are. Moments later, screams erupt from that direction.

“Twenty seven.” I say softly, panting for breath. Her head whips around to stare at me. 

“Y-You...with your Ice, right?”

I nod. “Of those twenty-seven, nearly all are mages. It looks like they can detect qi, if it’s obvious enough. Are you ready, Mari? We’re at the home stretch, but don’t get cocky. I didn’t get even a single mage with that.” 

She laughs lightly. “I know. I want to go home with everyone, too. So take care of yourself, alright?”

“Of course.” I say quietly. 

…

The mages aren’t quite prepared for the natural disaster that is Mari. Having seen the devastation wreaked amongst their company, they’re overly paranoid about their defensive reinforcements and shielding, and it’s enough to stop Mari as she streaks in like a glowing blue comet. But only for a moment — then, Mari rebounds off the first shield, touches the ground, and launches a blistering spinning kick that cleaves through the shield and the mage casting it. 

Creeping silently through the trees above them, I look to pick my spot as Mari begins running through the clearing. Red robes, green robes, yellow robes, blue robes. Those must correspond to the four elements. 

But, standing near the back of the company are four unique magi. Two of them wear black robes, and take defensive positions in front of the others. One wears a purple robe, and the last wears a silver robe. 

With a command from the silver robe, the two black robes join the fight against Mari. I narrow my eyes. They must be some kind of elites…no, they’re obviously bodyguards.

_That means…these two must be leaders of some kind. No, the silver robe is. He’s the one who gave the command. So the purple robe…to be assigned their own bodyguard, are they…a communication magus? One of those mages that specialize heavily in telepathy?_

_He’s a priority target, then. If he can coordinate the attack on Mari, she’ll be in serious danger._

I rest my hand on my blade, reinforce myself to the limit, and— 

_Wait. Why can’t I sense…my Ice anymore…?_

Where that source of sensory information once thrived…I can’t feel anything. Not in this area. I can still detect Setsuna and Sayaka resting in the house we left them in, but…

_They must have destroyed it after the last attack I launched. Guess that advantage isn’t working out for me anymore._

So instead of relying on my Ice further, something that is a known element to them, I aspect shift to Wind. It takes me less than two seconds. 

_I have one chance at this. They’ll notice the second I start channeling qi, so—_

I _move._

_“K-Kasuzusa!”_

—and my Wind-enhanced blade slices cleanly through a hasty, light blue barrier from the communication magus and deep into his guts. 

_I’ve noticed that about magi. They really like their elemental shields. But it only works against one element._

_Not like it would have mattered — the shield didn’t even block my steel blade. Guess he was expecting a purely elemental attack. Well, the fact that he managed to make a defense at all given the brief instant it took for me to cut the gap from a position of ambush is a little impressive, I guess._

_Next!_

I wheel around, steel whistling through the air as I turn on the silver robe and attempt to take his head off. He blocks, surprisingly, with a sword drawn from within his robe.

_Hm. That sword is well-crafted, but what catches my interest is the glittering ruby embedded in the hilt. What purpose does that serve, exact—_

Haven’t…all of the wands I’ve seen…had jewels on them? 

_Fuck!_

“ _Minaa! Mise, mise, mise!”_

I lunge backwards as a wave of fire erupts from the tip of the sword, using a burst of air to extinguish the most dangerous area, then rely on my enhancements to dart around the three fireballs in rapid succession. 

Wordlessly, I swing my blade, launching a crescent of Wind energy at my target, but he’s already started his incantation. 

_“Niteranaachizusa!”_

A light blue and yellow translucent shield erupts around him in all directions, forming a sphere. My energy blade disappears into the barrier with barely a ripple. 

_Gods, his incantations are so fast. Those seven syllables came out in barely over a second. Well, it’s an elemental shield, isn’t it? It must block Ice and Wind, based on those colors. That doesn’t leave me with many options, though…_

Frowning, I draw and hurl a throwing dagger.

_“Ninaa!”_

And duck as a rippling wave of air sends the kunai flying right back at me.

_Okay, think, Yuki. I can’t gap-close against that — he’d do the same thing to me, and I don’t have any convenient way to completely negate an Air attack. I’m sure if I threw Water attacks at him, he’d negate them the same way. Projectile attacks are useless as long as he has the time to react._

_I can’t even out-speed that incantation — it’s two syllables. That’s too fast._

_Then what do I do?!_

My eyes narrow. 

_Just how many elements can you really shield against? It must be tiring — or else, all the mages would have those shields up all the time. I have to take advantage of that._

Quickly, I unseal a scroll from my belt and launch it at the magus, blowing it away from me with a burst of Wind in the same smooth motion. Water rushes out of the scroll, aiming to overwhelm his barrier and, far more importantly, obscure me from his sight. 

_“Ninaa!”_

As expected, the same counter tears the water away from him even as it’s blocked by his shield. But I’m flipping above him, out of the range of what I’ve noticed is a _short-range_ spell.

Kicking off the air, I bring my sword to bear in a whirling slash that crashes into his sphere — _it’s physical,_ I realize belatedly. 

The shield cracks. 

Grinning savagely, I bring my qi to bear, Wind screeching against the magical barrier, and a moment later I tear through. He hastily moves, moving faster than any normal human should be able to. 

_Fucking reinforcement spells._

But still, I have him on the ropes, and— 

“Master!”

Mari’s warning and the black blur at the edge of my vision warns me of an oncoming attack, and I raise my sword in time to block an incredibly powerful sword slash that sends tremors running down both my arms. I’m not able to hold my ground, and am sent skidding backwards a dozen meters, managing to keep my footing through the mud.

I glare at the newcomer. One of the black-robed individuals noticed their leader under attack, and came back. The other is still in combat with Mari, and…it seems like that’s it. Everyone else is dead or dying.

…But the fact that Mari hasn’t already overcome that black-robed fighter is strongly indicative of her strength. 

_Hurry up, Mari._ _I don’t know if I can hold both of these people off, not if this one is as good as yours._

_Stall. I have to stall._

“You’re different, aren’t you?” I ask. “From all the other mages. Those cloaks of yours…what do they mean?”

The black-robed figure takes a step forward, reaching up to lower her hood. Throwing it back, they reveal themselves to be a young, petite redhead woman with glittering blue eyes. 

“It means I’m a _mage-knight_ , ninja.” Her fingers work at the buttons on her cloak, stripping it off of her in the next motion. Dark black combat boots adorn her feet, simple and practical. White stockings cover her lower legs, and travel up beneath her bright yellow skirt with silver trimmings. A brown, leather travel pouch is tied to the back of her waist, with a wand holster on her right side and a sheathed sword on her left. Her top consists of a white buttoned blouse, with a sewn badge of some sort attached to her breast with three suns. Long, gold, fingerless gloves complement her outfit, and a gold ribbon tied loosely at her collar completes the set.

“…How garish.” I mutter critically. 

She smiles brightly. “I think you’ll find that has no relation to my battle skill. Francis, please retreat.”

I can’t see the expression on this _Francis_ ’s face, given his position directly behind the mage knight. But I can guess from his following words:

“If that’s what you prefer, Anna.” He says. “I take my leave.” 

_No! The commander can’t escape!_

“Eyes front!” 

Her drawn blade crashes against mine as I prepare to target the commander. Belatedly, I realize that there’s some kind of a pale crystal embedded in the hilt of her silver blade. 

“ _Misetaro! Misetaro!_ ”

I’m forced to vault away as a pair of fireballs erupt from the tip of her sword, unerringly homing in on me. It forces me away from both Mari and the commander, Anna chasing after me gleefully as I dodge left and right. 

“ _Nishi! Nishi!”_

Little spears of air stab into the fireballs with incredible precision, detonating them next to me. 

Growling as I flip out of the explosions, clothing singed, I hurl my sword straight-on at her head. She grins, dodging effortlessly with enhanced speed.

“Heh, what was that supposed to—“

I lunge forward, pulling back my arm with the same motion. My sword, qi string attached, snaps back to me. She ducks underneath the returning blade, eyes locked on the string. 

Pulsing some qi into my blade as I catch it, I spin, launching the sword in a curving motion. She throws herself backwards, but that’s exactly what I’d counted on. 

_“Hurricane Sword!”_

A weaker version of the technique that I’d used against Sayaka in the Fourth-Star examination fires from my blade, catching her square in the chest. It seems she has some kind of resistance technique going, though, because the attack merely sends her flying back into a tree instead of crushing her ribcage. 

Snapping my blade back to me once more, this time I send it in a high, controlled arc, aiming to slash her in two on the way down. Yelping, she rolls to the side, the blade crashing into the dirt. 

“Hi-yah!” 

Nimbly flipping to her feet, Anna stomps the sword deeply into the ground before I can react, then flicks her wand and silently casts some kind of spell that severs the qi string. Immediately after, she charges at me, leaving me no time to retrieve my sword. 

Thoroughly annoyed, I draw my second blade and prepare to clash with her as she mutters something under her breath. 

—In the next moment, she’s right in my face, preparing to slash my throat open.

Gasping, I instinctively slip into my Ice nature and force a jagged growth of crystal out from my neck. Between that and my supernaturally good reinforcement, I’m able to mostly block the hit, the blade only shallowly cutting me. Eyes narrowed, my free hand brushes the hilt of her sword as she pulls away, leaving behind a deep slash on my arm as punishment. 

“First blood to me.” She taunts me. 

“So it is.” I say quietly, letting the Ice fall away. At least, the Ice on top of me. “But second blood will be _mine_.” 

I lunge at her, swinging my qi-enhanced weapon. She grins, attempting to deflect my blade, and is therefore extremely unpleasantly surprised when, upon contact, the hilt of her sword shatters, leaving me to slash her right across her face. 

“Aaah!” She stumbles backwards, blood spurting from a nasty laceration even as she manages to draw her wand from another hip holster. I reach out with my other hand, aiming at the qi I’ve left behind inside her blood. 

_“Crimson Crystalliz—“_

“ _Karazu!”_

I stare at her, dumbfounded. “Did you just...melt the Ice?”

“Fuck! You!” Anna snarls defiantly in return, the cut on her cheek closing up with some kind of healing technique. “I’m not going to get caught by that kind of cheap-ass bullshit!” 

“Fuck _you_ !” I retort right back. “You’re a magus! That is _the_ definition of cheap-ass bullshit! _Air Cannon!”_

Not content to merely banter, I’ve quietly aspect shifted and charged an attack as I’d spoken, and let it fly. 

“ _Nizusa!”_

And watch, irritated, as it gets countered by yet another elemental shield. What doesn’t get countered, though, is all the dirt that gets thrown into her face.

_Good. I’d angled it into the ground for a reason._

“Gah! You bitch! This was pure white! Fine, you want to see a Wind spell? I’ll show you a damn Wind spell!”

I don’t like the sound of that. Silently, I take flight with my Wind element.

“ _Nitakaluni!”_

A shell of Wind erupts around her, rapidly influencing the air surrounding her. Soon, she’s surrounded by a vortex that tears up the ground around her, decimating the surrounding area. 

From above, I watch as Mari and her opponent rapidly flee the scene. 

_“Hey! Get back down here!”_ From below, Anna shouts furiously at me. “Gaah! _Ranika!”_

The water around me suddenly condenses, serving to weigh me down.

_Sorry, that isn’t how my flight works. Distracting me with something that insignificant won’t work. Also—_

Letting myself slip into Ice, I begin falling as the water coating my back freezes solid. Grinning, I pulse just a tiny bit of my Etheria into the Ice coating my back, direct it to slide down to my arm, take form, and— 

“ _Karazusa—“_

The launched ice spear shatters against the shield, but the essence continues on. A hasty and frankly _impressive_ dodge from her means that she merely gets a hole torn through her shoulder, rather than her heart.

“Agh…W-What the—“ 

_Kasu. Zusa. Ni. I understand now. Kara is ice, zusa is some kind of shield, ni denotes wind, I think. If I can learn to predict those, then…_

Slipping into Wind again, I spiral down towards her, arcs of energy flying off of my blade. She parries tightly with an energized blade of energy originating from her wand, clearly wary of any further tricks.

Flittering twenty meters in the air, I sheath my sword and instead pull out my bow, taking repeated potshots at her. She deflects them with startling ease, repelling the Wind-enhanced arrows with a glowing blade.

_Hm…_

I hold the next arrow for a second, charging it with Etheria as well, then fire. She seamlessly rolls away, a quick shot of wind knocking it off course to tear through the trees and ground harmlessly. 

_No window to exploit, there. Then…what if…_

This time, I charge the arrow shaft with a tiny fragment of Etheria, nearly a hundredth of the last usage, and fire.

Narrowing her eyes, she dodges with the same strategy.

_She can’t discern the difference. She only knows that I’m using it._

Smirking, I repeat my strategy, charging tiny shots at her and forcing her to expend her energy wildly dodging away. 

And, this time, I watch her lips.

[Hey! Senia! Join with me quickly!]

The other black-robed mage quickly disengages from the fight, skidding to a stop next to Anna. 

[Great, thanks! Now... _Ranikalureta!_ ]

‘Ranika’…that was when she did the water vapor trick, wasn’t it? Then—

Using a modified version of _Gale Stance_ , I blast myself away as the water vapor in a twenty-meter radius around my current position abruptly condenses, becoming a torrent of water that crashes into the earth.

_If I’d been caught in that…it wouldn’t have been good. That spell wasn’t particularly strong, but it was woven frightfully fast for how much ground it covered. So that’s an example of combat-usable synergetic magic, huh?_

[How did he know to dodge that?!] 

[Well—]

The other magus starts replying, but it’s at that point I launch a high-explosive arrow that rips the clearing apart. 

Moments later, a massive white-hot fire wave erupts from the smoke left behind from my arrow, aiming to take Mari out. It’s hot enough to vaporize the snow on the ground, ensuring that the Storm Mistress can’t repeat her earlier tactic, and looks intense enough to force her to dodge instead of just tanking it with her Storm Cloak.

Alarmed, I start drifting lower to where I sense Mari is. 

_I can’t let them fight her two-on-one. Mari’s probably starting to feel battlefield fatigue, given how long she’s been in high-intensity combat. Besides that, these two are unusually strong. I think I’ve got a good read on her abilities, now, but—_

A shout comes out from the still-lingering smoke. 

_“Lumike!”_

Only my intense familiarity with Mari’s Storm lets me predict the incoming attack — a bolt of lightning flashes up from the clouds above me before flying down. Taking a page from Mari’s Fifth Star Examination, I hurl my sword up, letting the lighting be drawn to the blade. It’s sent flying away from me, still sparking.

Gritting my teeth, I dive low, weaving through the still-burning trees and pulling into a roll next to my teammate.

“Yo.” She says, panting slightly. “Alright?” 

“Mm.” I acknowledge, glancing at the smoke that _still_ hasn’t dissipated. It’s obvious that they’re purposefully maintaining the cloud. “We should look to end this quickly.” 

I’m tiring. I’ve _been_ tiring. It took a ton of my Etheria to establish my territory — which, while useful, still wore on my body, even if it didn’t use my qi. After that, I expended a substantial amount of qi countering the synergetic spell, then nearly immediately embroiled myself into brutal, relentless combat. 

Then there’s that Ice manipulation I used, a massive, long-range effect that killed nearly every civilian combatant in the western sector. That sucked a massive amount of my qi up, as well, not to mention the strain it put on my body…which was reversed via regeneration, taking up even more qi and Etheria. I’ve used enough power to permanently disable myself and run out of qi three times over. As usual, though, the solution to my problem is Etheria — specifically, using what Hikaru’s taught me to convert Etheria into qi, and artificially giving myself massive energy stores. 

_But I’ll run out, soon, and the drain only gets worse over time. This needs to end soon._

“I’ve figured her out.” Mari says. “Give me twenty seconds with her, and I’ll take her down. Can you stall yours for that long?”

I nod, unsealing a small vial as I do so and popping the contents into my mouth. The brunette glances at me curiously, but doesn’t ask as we both reinforce ourselves. 

“I’ll split them now.” She says, qi flaring to life around her as she raises one leg high. “ _Charge Kick!”_

It’s a simple, charmingly brutal technique. She brings her foot down in a powerful strike, the ground rupturing in a line from the impact. It sends dirt flying upwards into the air even as it shakes the earth.

Assuming that she’s split them right down the middle — she can sense their precise locations with her aberration — I run forward, a sword of Ice forming in my hand. 

A hail of rocks comes flying out of Anna’s cover. I charge the blade with Ice qi and slash them out of the way, bleeding out power with every strike to crush them even as I cut through them. 

Then, taking advantage of the energy I’ve already charged, I fire an arc of glowing-blue energy into the smoke. A glittering shield briefly shimmers into place. Without hesitation, I channel another fragment of Etheria into my blade and hurl it at the center of the shield. It dissipates as the sounds of frantic dodging ensure, but buys me the time I need to enter the cloud. 

As I suspected, the inner portions of the cloud are empty, somehow hollowed out to make a smoky barrier. 

_What a sophisticated, oddly specific spell._

Anna silently fires a point-blank fireball at me as I enter, and I block it with a reinforced arm. It hurts, certainly, but I’ve noticed that the basic fireballs aren’t all that hot. Sure, it would probably maim a civilian, but I’m an Ice Aberrant boosted with four levels of reinforcement. It does nothing more than scorch my clothing.

Eyes wide, she backpedals furiously, wand sprouting an energy blade as I form my own once more and slash at her, locking our weapons together.

_“Nilu—“_

I spit a cloud of glittering frost crystals right at her face. 

“Ah!” She aborts her incantation. “ _Kasu—“_

My knee slams into her stomach, forcing the air out of her lungs. She shoves me away with shocking force, but not before she breathes in the crystals. 

_“Kasuza!”_ She shouts triumphantly. The Ice dissolves. “I…I told you, I wouldn’t…” Her face pales as one hand clutches her throat. “W-What…what did you do…?”

I say nothing, simply transforming the sword in my hand to a spear. 

“It...c-can’t be...poison? Then—“

As she raises her wand to start an incantation, I lunge forward, impaling her through the heart with my Ice weapon.

Disbelievingly, Anna stares at the spear embedded within her.

“I...I lost? But—“

The spear-blade erupts into a jagged series of spikes, carving the inside of her body apart. Dissolving the blade, I watch as she falls, sapphire eyes unseeing. 

“You—“ Her teammate shouts, and that’s as far as she gets before Mari moves in a blitz of motion, spear carving deeply into her back. 

A moment later, an unfolding Ice spear rams its way through her right eye. Her body hits the floor a moment later.

“The commander—“ Mari starts, ignoring the falling body. 

I point in the direction that he’s gone. “He’s tricky with his shielding. Careful—“ 

She’s already left. Sighing heavily, I make my way after her, sparing a moment to glance at the two fallen bodies. 

_I’ll admit. I haven’t been treating you magi with enough respect. That was a commendable effort._

_But it wasn’t enough._

_Now…one left._

_Hm, wait, before that—_

_…_

By the time I get there, the fight’s already over.

“That was disappointing.” Mari murmurs, carrying the unconscious mage over her shoulder.

“Huh? He had seemed competent.” I say, surprised. “Did you catch him off guard?” 

She shakes her head. “No, look.” Shifting his body, she points out a bullet wound through his shoulder and leg.

My lips curl into a smile.

_Nice work, Setsuna._

“I’ll do some quick surgery on him so he doesn’t die on us. Then, let’s head back to Setsuna and Sayaka. They’re waiting.”

_…_

“You still haven’t healed, Sayaka?” I note, walking into the room. 

She shakes her head. “I overstrained myself too much. I’m out of qi.” 

Setsuna winces. “And I ran out of qi transfer seals. I can’t give her any.”

The blunette smiles weakly. “Don’t worry about it. I’m stable. Considering the…heh… _impact_ that I had, I’d say it was worth it.”

_She single-handedly wiped close to half of the Arcacian forces. I’m inclined to agree with her._

“Here.” I say softly. “Give me your legs.”

She obliges, and I run probing qi into her limbs.

“…I see.” I mutter. “The damage is extensive. I don’t know if I can heal this completely without draining myself dry.”

Sayaka nods. “I thought as much. Then…can you heal me enough to where I can stand on my own two legs, at least?”

“I…might have a solution.” Setsuna interjects. Our resident healer holds up a tag. “Yuki, Ms. Kozakura’s qi is sealed into this. Do you think you could—“

“Yes.” I confirm, taking the tag for her and focusing my qi to unseal it. The energy flows out, uncontrolled, but I’m able to easily corral it. After all, a not-insignificant chunk of it rests within me. From there, it’s a simple matter to direct it into Sayaka. 

The blunette sighs in relief. “Thank you, Setsuna. I’d almost forgotten what healthy legs feel like.” 

“I would be careful about stressing those, Hikaru’s qi or not.” I warn. “You know as well as I do just how badly you broke them. Take it easy.” 

She groans. “Yes, doctor.”

I glare at her. “I’m serious.” 

The Wind Mistress grimaces, but nods. 

“As for you, Setsuna…you aren’t physically injured, but you’re suffering from third-degree qi exhaustion. I don’t want to see any qi use from you at all, understand?”

She nods reluctantly.

“…So…” Sayaka says slowly. “We won, right? We can go home now?”

“…We won, yes.” I say quietly. “But…hey, Mari.” I call out. “Are you done securing him yet?” 

“Yep.” Mari makes her way into the house we’re taking refuge in. “Why? What’s wrong?” 

“I wanted to go over something I noticed about our current situation. Right now, we have an unprecedented opportunity.”

“Oh, no…” Sayaka groans. “No, Yuki. Gods damn it, no…” 

“On what grounds do you object?” I ask her curiously.

“What’s going on?” Mari asks, confused. “What’s he want to do?”

_That’s right. The very first training exercise we ever had…_

“Yuki…Yuki wants to infiltrate Arcacia.”

  
  



	88. (3.9.9) Resolve, Part 9

#  **3.9.9 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Resolve, Part 9**

“…I see.” Mari says, unusually solemn. 

“Right now, Arcacia has never been more vulnerable to infiltration.” I say quietly. “They’re not expecting us. Who expects to get infiltrated at the beginning of their own invasion? And all of their forces on this side of the border are dead. They’ll be running on a skeleton crew. And, finally, they’ll have anticipated that we ran away, to warn Alune of impending attack.” 

“What do we have to gain from infiltrating now?” Sayaka murmurs. “When things are so dangerous, shouldn’t we…” She trails off. “No. I…I understand.” Gritting her teeth, she slumps in her seat. “Damn it, Yuki…”

_I’m not surprised that Sayaka gets it. Even if the conclusion is unappealing, she’s never been one to shy away from the truth._

“It has to be you and me, doesn’t it, captain?” Mari says softly. 

_Two sensors, to detect traps and make it past the border. The two healthiest people, too. Sayaka’s in no condition to be moving around quickly, and Setsuna needs to recover from her qi exhaustion. It has to be us._

“Yes. Well, technically, you don’t have to go.” I reply. “But I will.”

_I can’t turn down this opportunity to learn more about magic. Damn you, Hikaru, for molding me into a person curious enough to want to know more about it. To need to understand it. And besides that, the information I can bring is…incredibly useful. There’s so much we can learn here, and it really is an unprecedented opportunity._

_And...maybe I can learn more about that woman, too...?_

Mari laughs tiredly. “You think I could leave you after what you’ve done for me? Don’t make me smack you.”

I hide a smile, but just barely. 

“You’re sure that this is the correct answer, Yuki?” Setsuna says quietly. 

I meet her gaze. “I am.”

She glances away. “I’m…then I’m in favor as well.” 

I nod. “Thank you.” 

“Sayaka.” Mari says suddenly. “Do you think you could help me interrogate our prisoner? Since you’re going back, it’s best if you can bring back as much information as you can…and a prisoner, too.” 

“H-Huh? Uh…” She glances at Setsuna and I. “Yeah, sure, but—”

Seizing Sayaka’s arm, Mari bodily drags her out of the room, kicking the door shut behind her. 

“Will you be okay, Setsuna?” I ask. She rears back, surprised.

“What? You’re the one who’s infiltrating Arcacia, Yuki. I’m—“ 

“Setsuna.” I say softly. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it back.” 

She bites her lip. “I…I know, Yuki. I…I know.” She averts her gaze. “But I don’t have a choice. It doesn’t matter if I’m okay with it or not. All I can do…is hope that you’ll be okay.” 

I don’t know how to respond to that. She turns back to me, letting me see that familiar self-loathing she carries inside her. 

“I’m sorry, Yuki. I’m so sorry that I’m so damn _useless_ —“ 

Gently, I slap her. The blow isn’t even enough to redden her skin, but it cuts her off effectively nonetheless as she looks up with me with wide eyes. 

“No.” I say softly. “You’ve never been useless.” My hand, still resting on her cheek, moves to pull her in for a hug that she doesn’t resist. “I’ve never thought of you that way, and I never will, Setsuna.” 

She’s warm, and so very soft. Her fists grab at the fabric of my back, holding me to her. 

“Please…please come back to me, Yuki. Promise me. Promise me that you’ll come back.” 

She and I know well that a promise like that can’t be kept. She knows, but asks anyways. 

“If I come back, I’ll take you on a date.” I say instead. 

“A…A date?” She asks uncertainly.

“Mmm.” 

Despite the tense situation, she still manages to smile slightly. “Then, if…no, when you come back…I’ll let you.” 

I smile too, staring at her soft expression. “Then…I’ll see you when the time comes, okay?” 

Neither one of us wants to say goodbye. 

“W-Wait, Yuki…” 

Nor to be the first to let go. 

“Yes, Setsuna?” 

She hesitates for a moment, then…leans up and presses her mouth to mine.

Once, twice, three times our lips meet, then she pulls away from my embrace entirely, as if scared she won’t want to ever let go if she lingers for just a little while longer. 

“I’ll be waiting.” She says softly, a brave smile on her face. 

But underneath that expression: 

_Please don’t leave me behind._

“I know.” 

Without another word, I turn away. 

“Hey, Yuki?”

“Yeah?”

“One day...could you take me back here? To...Arcacia?”

I nod. “You don’t even need to ask. Let’s go.” 

Silently, she follows me to where I can detect Mari, Sayaka, and our prisoner.

“Back so soon?” Sayaka asks, clearly intrigued. She’s standing outside of the room where the prisoner is, having just shut the door behind her. 

“Focus.” I chastise her lightly. “So, what’s going on with him?” 

“I was coming to get you, actually. Turns out…the guy’s really resistant to torture.” She answers. 

“So you came to fetch me?” 

“Mari said you had some...experience.”

I nod, carefully not looking at Setsuna.

“Alright. I’ll hurry.” 

…

The man proves remarkably resistant to torture, as I’d been told. I’d expected command, especially _mage_ command, to be soft. 

Once I realize that we’re not getting anywhere, even after I’ve shaved the meat from his arms, I use a potent drug cocktail that scrambles his brain. That, combined with a concussion, is sufficient to lower his resistances somewhat.

The little we learn is quite interesting. 

First of all, through these _communication mages_ , or those who specialize in telepathy, Arcacian armies can communicate over moderate distances with nothing but their magic. To make matters worse…even basic telepathy can be performed by individuals in the same squad, although thankfully over much, much shorter distances.

Still, this presents a massive issue; namely, that the Arcacian Command is likely to have noticed that an entire squad has fallen out of communication, and will react appropriately. This sharply shortens our window for infiltration. I’d hoped to have at least a few more hours of safety, but we need to leave _soon_. 

We find out that, about five hundred kilometers from the border crossing we’re at lies a fairly well-defended communication fort, and a handful of villages. They could be interesting targets, I suppose.

…And that’s all I can get from him before he becomes…unresponsive, should we say, to further interrogation. 

“Well…at this point, we’re better off just diving in.” I say, staring at the human vegetable in front of us. Without hesitation, I snap his neck. He’s useless as a prisoner now, so there’s no point having Sayaka and Setsuna drag him back.

“So Sayaka and I are overlooking the evacuation?” Setsuna asks. 

I nod. “To an extent. Organize them and get them going, but you can’t wait for them. We need to get a report back to home. The incoming patrol can manage the evacuations. With that in mind, I’ll have to ask you guys to try and beat the following patrol home, so you can get them updated. You’ll need to try making the journey in…”

_It’s nearly evening now, so…_

“Barely more than five days. Sayaka, you can’t use your legs strenuously, so…”

The blunette smiles. “Once I get over my qi exhaustion, that won’t be a problem.”

“Hm? Ah. Wind Mistress. Right. You can take passengers with you already?” I ask, surprised. 

_I haven’t even_ ** _started_** _on anything like that. I’ve only just managed combat-capable flight._

She smirks. “Of course.”

 _Then again, I have to admit that Sayaka’s surpassed me for some time in the Wind department. She has full control in flight, whereas I use it almost primarily for positioning. It works fine, but I could never have done something as intricate as, say,_ **_Falling Star_ ** _._

_And boy, that’s a technique I want to copy as soon as possible._

“Then, if there isn’t anything else, we need to go.” I gesture towards the border. 

“Good luck, Sayaka, Setsuna.” Mari steps forward, hugging each of them very briefly. It seems that she even manages to avoid sparking anyone on accident. 

“Good luck.” Setsuna murmurs. 

“Godspeed.” Sayaka says, using a far more traditional phrase. I glance at her, mildly amused. 

Sending me a small grin in return, she walks up to me and bumps me with her hip. 

“Take care of yourself, alright? Don’t get yourself killed.” 

“Understood.” I reply. If my insincerity bothers her, she doesn’t show it as she leans forward to briefly kiss me on the cheek. 

I can’t suppress a small smile. “Be safe.” 

She snorts inelegantly, whirling around in a cape of blue hair. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Setsuna, ready?”

The girl in question stares at me. “Y-Yeah. I’ll…let’s go.” 

I nod to her. Just once. She flashes me a weak smile, then follows Sayaka as the blunette starts jogging away. 

“You’re going to miss them, aren’t you?” Mari says quietly, watching them leave with me. 

My eyes don’t leave their backs until they disappear behind one of the streets. “Of course. But…” I close my eyes, hurling those feelings underneath the surface of my Veil. “We don’t have a choice. This is just what needs to be done?” 

“Yeah…” She mutters under her breath. “I understand. Then let’s go, too. Before we miss _our_ window.” 

It’s then that the gravity of our task really begins to set in. Mentally, I visualize our missions once more. 

**Northern Border Patrol Y493M8D13, Addendum**

_7S:7S_

_Assigned: 3-4S, 7S | 2H_

_Leader: Mari_

_Objective: Routine Border Patrol of the Northern Border, Sector 31 (Kitamori / Oshiroikishi). See below._

_Timeline: Standard (14D)_

_Update: Multiple routine patrols have fallen out of contact. Suspected enemy activity. Rescue survivors if possible. Report useful information at all costs. Determine identity of aggressors._

_Addendum: Combat with Arcacian Mages and Mage Knights anticipated. Research on their fighting styles is highly recommended._

_Addendum: First team lost contact. Mission updated from fourth-star to fifth-star significance._

_Addendum: Second team lost contact. Mission updated from fifth-star to seventh-star significance. Recommend sending a team suitable for taking down opposing mages with the expectation that combat will occur. Also recommend sending a team with high sensory capabilities due to the heightened possibility of ambush._

_Addendum: First and second teams slain by enemy action. Enemy border patrol attempted to ambush us. Counterattacked, launched interrogations, and executed prisoners. Repelled a preliminary invasion force of four hundred Arcacian soldiers, a quarter of whom were mages. Briefly interrogated invasion commander, but didn’t learn anything especially useful except for some information regarding their telepathy._

_Addendum: Confirmed invasion set to begin three hours from now. New mission formed in response to this information._

**Arcacian Infiltration Mission**

_9S:9S_

_Assigned: 4S, 7S | 1H_

_Leader: Yuki_

_Objective: Infiltrate the Arcacian border, then gather information regarding the upcoming invasion. If possible, aim to cripple important targets from behind enemy lines to delay the war efforts._

_Timeline: ???_

I grimace.

_Addendum: Tangible progress required, or else we will face potential execution for dereliction of duty._

I open my eyes, resolve flooding into my veins. 

“We have to do this.” I affirm to myself once more. “So. Where shall we begin?”

  
  



	89. (3.9.10) Resolve, Closing (Leona's POV)

#  **3.9.10 — Spellborne, Book 1**

#  **Resolve, Closing (Leona’s POV)**

“Now, stare into the water. Open your inner self to the world, and the world will speak to you.” 

Annoyed, I stare into the water, seeing nothing but my own reflection. While it’s true that all  _ Clairvoyants _ have some potential for futuresight, all these lessons have proven simply that  _ my _ potential must be about zero. Everyone’s already had at least one vision, even the really weak ones.

_ But I can’t seem to grasp anything from the manastream!  _

I _know_ I can beat all of them in single combat. No, even in groups at a time! They’re all so weak! And I know my academic knowledge of magic is leagues beyond them all, too! So it isn’t about that! Magical power, theoretical understanding, none of it matters. And I have no idea what _does_! 

I just want something interes— 

_ Cold dark eyes stare into my own, a chill running through my blood, sparking in pain fear agony terror hope passion— _

“Wah!” I stumble back from the Reflection Pool, heart pounding in my chest.

“Oh?” My Divination professor murmurs from behind me, causing me to spin around. “And what is it that you’ve seen that has startled you so?” She asks curiously.

“N-Nothing.” I say defiantly.

“Oh? A vision of a future lover, perhaps?” She says. “Your heart is racing, mind whirling, skin sweaty—“

“Get out of my mind.” I snarl.

“Testy, testy.” She replies blithely. “Ah, no matter. All of us Clairvoyants are tied to the eddies and flows of the manastream, of Time and Fate, in ways no others are. And you, my most passionate student, I think will find out sooner, rather than later.”

“Passionate?! I fucking hate this class!”

“And yet that hate drives you to research and understanding in ways no other student here will.” She says serenely.

As much as it pains me, I can’t deny that. Swearing viciously under my breath, I storm out of the classroom. She doesn’t stop me.

As annoyed as I am...that vision, the first I’ve ever had...

_ Something interesting, huh? We’ll see _ . 

I frown.

_ Fate…? _

#  **END OF BOOK ONE**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for sticking with me for so long! Book 2 shall begin shortly (it'll be attached to this work, though!).
> 
> In the meantime, check out my other side stories!


	90. BOOK ONE INTERLUDE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Current list of Yuki and Mari's abilities! 
> 
> Feel free to skip ahead to the next chapter, which begins Book 2 -- 4.1 proper!

#  **BOOK ONE INTERLUDE**

##  **Yuki Hikawa, Ice Aberrant**

###  **Physical Parameters:**

  
**CQC** : 5.5⭐︎  
**ECQC** : 7⭐︎  
**Ninja Arts** : 7.5⭐︎  
**Special** : Ice 7.5⭐︎ Wind 6.5⭐︎ Water 5⭐︎ Healing 7⭐︎  
**Strength** : 5⭐︎ (7⭐︎)  
**Speed** : 6⭐︎ (7.5⭐︎)  
**Stamina** : 7.5⭐︎  
**Intelligence** : 7⭐︎  
**Stealth** : 7.5⭐︎  
**Overall** **Combat** : 7⭐︎ 

###  **Tools:**

**Spellforged Black Steel Blades forged by Takeshi Katsuo (2x)**

**Properties:** Enhanced ability to project Yuki’s chakra of variant types. Extremely hard and durable, necessitating a high level of reinforcement to use as a weapon. These blades have seals written on them courtesy of Setsuna that allow him to use a mockery of Gale Stance, even without tapping into Wind. 

**Liquid Etheria Stores gifted by Hikaru Kozakura (??)**

**Properties** : Will destroy anyone who consumes it without Regeneration abilities. There is enough stored here to sustain Yuki through multiple lifetimes. 

**Communication Scroll created by Setsuna Tsuri (1x)**

**Properties** : ???

**Bow (1x)**

**Properties:** Marked with a variety of seals, that store:

**Arrows, Various (300x)**

**Miscellaneous Scrolls**

###  **Skills:**

**Ice Aberration** **(7.5⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎ 

Potency: 7⭐︎ 

Versatility: 9⭐︎ 

Current Benefits: Heightened affinity for Reinforcement, True Regeneration, Ice Manipulation. 

Shown Side Effects: Chronic Psychopathy (Nullified by mastering his Mindscape and learning how to manipulate his Veil), Lower Body Temperature. Incapable of sleeping in the vicinity of a blizzard. Irreversibly corrupts his Mindscape to be a frozen landscape. A loss of control over his Ice leads to Incarnation. 

**Ice Manipulation** **(7.5⭐︎)**

Skill: 8⭐︎ 

Potency: 7⭐︎ 

Versatility: 7⭐︎ 

Notes: Yuki is an Ice Aberrant, and can switch to this element instantly. 

**Veil/Mindscape** **(9⭐︎)**

Skill: 6⭐︎ 

Potency: 10⭐︎ 

Versatility: 7⭐︎ 

Notes: Yuki is familiar with using his Veil, though currently leaves it down when it isn’t necessary. Increasing his usage of the Veil dulls his emotions sharply, depending on how far he goes. If he goes too far, however, he will lose control of himself. His Blood Vow has been proven to stop him from sinking too deeply (unconsciously), though this will shatter his Mindscape and lead to rapid descent into insanity.

 **Wind Manipulation** **(6.5⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎ 

Potency: 7⭐︎

Versatility: 7⭐︎ 

Notes: It takes Yuki approximately 1.5 seconds to make this affinity shift.

 **Water Manipulation** **(5⭐︎)**

Skill: 5.5⭐︎ 

Potency: 4⭐︎

Versatility: 4⭐︎ 

Notes: It takes Yuki approximately 8 seconds to make this affinity shift.

 **Reinforcement** **(8⭐︎)**

Skill: 8.5⭐︎ 

Potency: 8⭐︎

Notes: Yuki is capable of fourth-level reinforcement, which he is now skilled enough to automatically default to. His Ice Aberration further strengthens his Reinforcement. 

**Regeneration** **(7⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎ 

Potency: 7⭐︎

Notes: An innate part of his Ice Aberration. 

**Healing** **(6.5⭐︎)**

Skill: 6⭐︎ 

Potency: 5⭐︎

Notes: Yuki is capable of both direct and indirect healing. 

**Poison** **(5⭐︎)**

Skill: 5⭐︎ 

Potency: 5⭐︎

Notes: Yuki is capable of utilizing a variety of poisons in battle, but uses almost exclusively quick-acting paralyzing poison that he has developed an immunity to.

 **Sensing** **(7.5⭐︎)**

Skill: 6⭐︎ 

Potency: 6⭐︎ / 9.5⭐︎ 

Notes: Yuki’s improved sensory capabilities allow him to readily detect most things within a short radius of him. If on his Ice, Yuki can track anything from any distance (except for extreme distances such as over ten kilometers). His sensory capabilities are more intricate than they used to be, as well. 

**Mindscape** **(6⭐︎)**

Skill: 4⭐︎ 

Potency: 7⭐︎ 

Notes: Yuki’s Mindscape is well-developed and he is intimately familiar with it. Now if only he could stop breaking it...

 **Swordsmanship** **(7⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎ 

Potency: 7⭐︎

Notes: While favoring a one-handed style that allows him to utilize qi techniques with his other hand, he is also capable of both a two-handed style as well as dual-wielding, though to a lesser degree of skill. He is also capable of utilizing a variety of other weapons with ease, including the shield, sword, and dagger. 

**Archery** **(6⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎ 

Potency: 5⭐︎

Notes: Yuki is capable of utilizing his qi and Etheria to create and enhance his bow and arrows. 

###  **Notable Techniques (Ice):**

**Permafrost (7⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎

Potency: 6⭐︎ 

Range: All

Description: Yuki’s Ice techniques burst upon impact, freezing surfaces. Works in conjunction with Crystallization and is one of the two main Materialization skills. 

**Crystallization (7⭐︎)**

Skill: 6.5⭐︎

Potency: 7.5⭐︎ 

Range: Short-Mid

Description: Yuki’s Ice can spread over time if given his energy, spreading like a virus. Works in conjunction with Permafrost and is one of the two main Materialization skills. Also serves as a core for most of his other Ice Techniques. 

**Frozen Garden (7.5⭐︎)**

Skill: 8⭐︎

Potency: 7.5⭐︎ 

Range: Short-Mid

Description: Yuki freezes the area around him. A natural expansion of Crystallization and Permafrost. 

**Crimson Crystallization** **(8⭐︎)**

Skill: 6.5⭐︎ 

Potency: 8.5⭐︎

Range: Short-Mid

Description: Yuki draws on any Ice or his qi he has attached to or injected into an enemy, then abruptly expands it, tearing them apart from the inside-out. Can be countered if his qi is expelled before he is able to utilize it. The real strength comes from the fact that even a small portion of his Ice, charged properly, is sufficient for him to perform this technique, making even small projectiles have lethal potential. 

**Snowstorm (5⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎ 

Potency: 3⭐︎ / 8⭐︎

Range: Mid-Long

Description: Yuki fires off a billowing blast of Ice in the form of snow. Sharply reduces temperature and visibility in the vicinity, and slows people. Not compatible with Crystallization due to how fragile the snow is, though. Yuki can use a more potent variation of this using Ice shards instead of snow, but it is exceedingly more taxing. 

**Blossom Spear (5⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎ 

Potency: 3⭐︎ 

Range: Mid-Long

Description: A skill inspired by Setsuna, Yuki launches a tiny needle of Ice that rapidly expands to become a spear. Multiple spears can be thrown at once. 

**??? (9⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎

Potency: 10⭐︎ 

Range: Short-Long

Description: ??? 

###  **Notable Techniques (Wind):**

**Windwalker (7.5⭐︎)**

Skill: 8.5⭐︎

Potency: 4⭐︎ 

Range: Short

Description: Yuki uses air bubbles underneath his feet to walk, run, and jump on the air. Has developed a mastery of this to the point where, combined with Gale Stance, he has something very close to true combat flight. 

**Gale Stance, Form One(5⭐︎)**

Skill: 5.5⭐︎

Potency: 4⭐︎ 

Range: Short

Description: A form of elemental ECQC that uses Wind to sharply enhance the power of his blows. 

**Gale Stance, Form Two(7⭐︎)**

Skill: 8⭐︎

Potency: 5⭐︎ 

Range: Short

Description: A form of elemental ECQC that uses Wind to sharply enhance the power of his blows. Used in conjunction with a single sword. 

**Gale Stance, Form Three(7⭐︎)**

Skill: 6.5⭐︎

Potency: 6.5⭐︎ 

Range: Short

Description: A form of elemental ECQC that uses Wind to sharply enhance the power of his blows. Used in conjunction with two swords. 

**Hurricane Sword (7⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎

Potency: 7.5⭐︎ 

Range: Mid-Long

Description: A devastating, linear blast of Wind that shreds anything in its path. 

**Breaker (5⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎

Potency: 4.5⭐︎ 

Range: Mid-Long

Description: A blast of Wind that sweeps up anything in its path and crushes it. 

**Stormbreaker (8⭐︎)**

Skill: 6⭐︎

Potency: 7.5⭐︎ 

Range: Mid-Long

Description: A wide-ranged, massive blast of Wind that sweeps up anything in its path and crushes it.

##  **Mari Aono, The Wild Storm**

###  **Physical Parameters:**

  
**CQC** : 7⭐︎  
**ECQC** : 9⭐︎  
**Ninja Arts** : 7⭐︎  
**Special** : Storm 8⭐︎ Sensor 7⭐︎  
**Strength** : 6⭐︎ (7.5⭐︎)  
**Speed** : 7⭐︎ (8.5⭐︎)  
**Stamina** : 6.5⭐︎  
**Intelligence** : 6.5⭐︎  
**Stealth** : 6⭐︎  
**Overall** **Combat** : 8.5⭐︎ 

###  **Tools:**

**Spellforged Black Steel Spear forged by Takeshi Katsuo (1x)**

**Properties:** Enhanced ability to project Mari’s chakra of variant types. Extremely hard and durable, necessitating a high level of reinforcement to use properly as a weapon. Has a seal array linked to her body that stores and returns the spear to her by her will. 

###  **Skills:**

**Storm Aberrant** **(8⭐︎)**

Skill: 8⭐︎ 

Potency: 10⭐︎ 

Versatility: 6⭐︎ 

Current Benefits: Dramatically heightened physical capabilities, extreme (perfect when focused) reflexes, ability to sense living creatures by their bioelectricity, ability to detect lies via heartbeat. 

Shown Side Effects: Heightened aggression and a sharpened desire to fight. Tends to ignore her own injuries. Scares the fuck out of animals. Hurts herself with use of her Storm. Incapable of sleeping in the vicinity of a thunderstorm. Shocks people she touches unless she maintains a tight control over her power. Ramp up of aggression over time (mostly nullified by having a Master she can pin absolute obedience to). Loss of control results in Incarnation (her Master may not be able to control her). 

**Storm Manipulation** **(8⭐︎)**

Skill: 8⭐︎ 

Potency: 9⭐︎ 

Versatility: 7⭐︎ 

Notes: Mari is a Storm Aberrant, and can switch to her element instantly. 

**Leashed** **(9⭐︎)**

Skill: 9⭐︎ 

Potency: 7⭐︎ 

Notes: Her mental Leash is currently tied to Yuki Hikawa, Ice Aberrant. 

**Reinforcement** **(6⭐︎)**

Skill: 5⭐︎ 

Potency: 6⭐︎

Notes: Mari is capable of second-level reinforcement. She is experienced enough to use this permanently. 

**Sensing** **(7⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎ 

Potency: 10⭐︎ 

Notes: Mari is capable of detecting any living thing in a large vicinity, though she’s learned to tune out small stuff (anything not human or a large animal). Her effective maximum range is 400 meters when she concentrates in an open space. She isn’t able to pick out specific people, though. 

**Spear** **(7⭐︎)**

Skill: 5⭐︎ 

Potency: 5⭐︎

Notes: Mari is reasonably proficient with the spear. That being said, much of her strength comes from her extreme physical parameters rather than true skill. 

###  **Notable Techniques (Storm):**

**Storm Cloak (9⭐︎)**

Skill: 9⭐︎

Potency: 9⭐︎ 

Range: Self

Description: Mari cloaks her body in Storm qi. It dramatically heightens her physical parameters and shocks anything it comes into contact with. 

**Overclock (9⭐︎)**

Skill: 8⭐︎

Potency: 1-EX⭐︎ 

Range: Short-Mid

Description: Mari overloads her body with power, allowing her to temporarily move beyond her body’s capability. This skill is core to many of her skills, especially Volt Line. Any use of this technique damages her body. 

**Volt Line (9⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎

Potency: 3-10⭐︎ 

Range: Short-Mid

Description: Mari’s signature technique. A single, horrifically powerful punch overloaded with Storm Chakra that disintegrates anything in its path. Usage of this can be debilitating depends on how much power she puts into it. At maximum strength, she can easily break the sound barrier. Has a notable wind-up time. 

**Flash Step** **(9⭐︎)**

Skill: 7⭐︎ 

Potency: 9-10⭐︎

Range: Short-Mid

Description: A specialized use of Overclock, Mari utilizes her perfect reflexes in order to move at impossibly high speeds. Used almost exclusively as a defensive technique, though she has yet to need to use this in a fight. 

**Flashpoint (5⭐︎)**

Skill: 5⭐︎ 

Potency: 3⭐︎

Range: Short-Mid

Description: A blinding flash of electricity. Arguably the most complex ability Mari possesses. 

  
  



	91. (4.1.1) Culture Shock, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go!

#  **4.1.1 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Culture Shock, Part One**

“We should start with a village.” I say decisively. “It’ll let us get accustomed to the local dialect and culture.”

That similar ancestry Lunarians and Arcacians share must be the cause behind our shared language, but I’d noticed some subtle differences in our manners of speaking. I want to give us time to get used to that, as well as use that as a way to ease ourselves into long-term, deep infiltration. We’ve never done anything quite as intensive or important as this before, after all. In theory, we can infiltrate the civilian population directly, and learn as much as we can before making our next moves.

“We need to disguise ourselves as mages to infiltrate the fort itself, if we go there…would a civilian village have stuff like that?”

“I’m not sure. Hopefully, since this is a border village, they have mages around the area. We can steal their stuff. Speaking of which…Mari, you can’t suppress your aura any more than that, can you?” 

She winces. “No.”

While her aura is clearly lesser than normal, the energy detectable from her is clearly identifiable from as much as five meters away. To make matters worse, since Storm isn’t close to a natural element for the wand-wavers, she stands out even more. And that’s just with my relatively limited detection capabilities. Setsuna could detect her from even farther, and who knows what the Arcacian mages could do. With their focus on the external, it’s likely that they have better detection capabilities. 

“Well, it’s a good thing that we’ve already prepared for this.” 

I pull a suppressant seal out of my belt seal. Mari groans, but knows how important it is that we go undetected. She hikes up the back of her shirt, and I apply the seal to the small of her back and trigger it with a pulse of qi. She shudders slightly as it kicks in. 

“Speaking of which, we’re going to need to find new clothes for you.” I say, then reconsider, looking down at my own clothing. “And for me.” 

Mari, in particular, stands out, what with her absolutely blood-drenched clothing, but both of our clothing styles would stand out in Arcacia. They’re far too blatantly ninja. We’ll have to start with peasant clothing and work our way upwards if we want to be able to show ourselves in public at all.

“How are we going to cross the Great Forest?” 

“Yes. I have an idea for it.”

…

“This is so stupid.”

“But it’s working.” 

I’ve simply frozen the earth in front of us, then dissolved it, creating an Ice tunnel of sorts down through the earth. It’s not large — we both have to crawl — but doing anything more would be horrifyingly exhausting, and I’m taxing myself so much as it is. 

Once I’ve gone down perhaps a hundred meters, I hollow out a larger space, then shift to Earth to close the way out. Then I unseal a pair of small tubes, offering one to Mari.

“What is this?”

“Oxygen seals. Put your mouth to the open end, and breathe in. The seals will do the rest.” 

And from there, we tunnel. It is long, exhausting work — reinforcing the ground above us, the constant grind to move forward, with the only saving grace being that we move quite fast, my Ice able to shred through the bedrock like butter. 

It’s cool, too, thankfully, or we’d both cook alive in here. 

The oxygen devices break after four hours, but I have a pack of twelve. I continue tunneling through, stopping after a relentless six hours of digging to hollow out a space, stretch our backs, shower in a quick burst of Water chakra, and eat a quick meal of ration bars. When I’m done, I collapse against the wall, tired but feeling more human than I have in...well, six hours. 

“Are you okay?” Mari asks, concerned. 

I nod tiredly. “I need a nap. I’ll reinforce everything, but...I’m _exhausted._ ” 

“Don’t overdo it, captain.” She murmurs worriedly, briefly hugging me. I let her.

_It’s nice._

...

After a four hour nap, I continue, feeling much better. Still, though, I’m forced to take breaks, and halfway through I begin drawing steadily on my Etheria reserves, converting the potent life energy to qi. My nerves burn, forcing me to slip into my Veil a little, but I push as far as I can until the amount of energy I’m forced to spend healing myself from the damage I’m ignoring makes the whole process not worthwhile. 

“Another break?” Mari asks, relieved as I hollow out a room once more. 

I nod. “The problem isn’t power. It’s how dangerously close I’m coming to exhaustion.” 

_My body can handle more than my reserves, but even I have my limits. I would have already been deep into exhaustion without my regeneration...and though the Etheria drain is very light right now, I don’t want to use it more than I have to._

She nods. “Take a break, then? Sleep properly. I could use the rest myself.” 

...

Twenty four hours into the process, I finally deem it worthwhile to see what’s going on at the surface. We’ve moved some forty kilometers underground, which should have taken us out of the Arcacian Great Forest. 

The process of tunnelling diagonally upwards is only mildly more annoying, and soon enough, I carefully, slowly breach the surface once Mari confirms there aren’t any humans nearby that she can sense. 

“We’re out.” I say, relieved as I breathe fresh air for the first time in over a day. Taking in my surroundings, we’ve found ourselves at the outskirts of the forest, many acres of farmland and flatland in front of us, as well as what appears to be a well-travelled dirt road. 

Mari pulls herself out from the hole a moment later, taking in the night air as I begin slowly shifting my way back to Earth. We can’t linger around though, and my mind starts racing. 

“According to what I know from the border maps, there should be a village called Ember about six kilometers northeast.” I muse as we begin stripping as many signs of our origin as possible off of us. Our tool belts and swords are sealed into a scroll which is in turn sealed into the storage seal at my hip. I take my shirt off, leaving me with only an undershirt to cover my chest. 

“Indeed. But how will we infiltrate it? This entire area is mostly farmland and flatland. If anyone’s watching, they’ll see us coming from far away, and with our clothes…” 

I stare speculatively at the blood splattered on her clothes. It’s started to dry, but I think it’ll still be usable.

“How good of an actor are you?”

…

“Please help!” I beg the bemused villager, Mari cradled in my arms and barely conscious. “I think she’s been stabbed!”

“What the—what?“ As expected, the villager doesn’t know how to react to a stranger dressed in strange clothes, knocking on his door late at night. After a minute of knocking, loudly enough to get his attention yet not so loudly that I wake up everyone in the vicinity, he’s cracked the door open for me. I critically analyze his clothing while maintaining the pleading mask on my face. 

Peasant clothes, crafted with what appears to be basic cloth, and _very_ similar to the clothing I’ve noticed in our own villages. I’ll be sure to carry a similar set on me when I go around from now on, if I ever have to do this again. For now, though— 

Mari coughs on me, blood splattering onto my clothing.

“Please, sir! I’m a healer, but I need to lay her down and sterilize the wound first!” 

I’m unsure if that’s how healing magic works around here — that is, if they have any at all — but my senses tell me that this man has no ability to manipulate qi, nor does he have any kind of detectable magical focus on him. 

And this is just a guess, but I’m willing to bet that the magical and mundane individuals of this world are kept somewhat isolated in this world for the same reasons as they are in ours: too many people, with different attitudes, cultures, and needs. If this guess holds up true, then I can say just about anything I want to him about magic and he will just have to accept it as fact. There aren’t any consequences if I turn out to be wrong, thanks to his lack of means to warn anyone. Without telepathy, I can easily stop him if he tries to warn anyone via mundane means. The only problem might come from old-fashioned shouting, but so long as I keep him unguarded with Mari’s imminent peril, he shouldn’t look into any oddities too much.

“Ah….er…” He’s hesitant. My observant eyes catch the way he tensed up when I mentioned that I was a healer. It takes a long moment, but finally:

“Alright, alright. Come in, set her down. Not on the couch, please.” He opens the door, letting us in, then closes it behind us. 

What an inane thing to say, considering I have a dying woman in my arms. That being said, his general attitude, combined with my previous assumptions...hm...

Let’s run off of the assumption that magic users and the peasantry are separated from each other. I doubt they’re completely ignorant of each other, based on his reaction to me claiming that I was a healer — and that alone gave me information, too. I think it’s plausible that commoners here, or at least this particular one, resents magic-users. It explains his tense reaction to my claim, and falls in neatly with what else I’ve been able to figure out. 

Why does he hate magi? Well, if the two groups are insulated from each other, it means that the commoners are also likely denied the gifts that magic users are allowed. In Alune, at least, ninja do regularly work to protect civilians, even from simple mundane criminals. It might not be for entirely selfless reasons, but protection is given nonetheless. Even healing is performed upon civilians who have injuries that can’t be treated through mundane means, if they are willing to transport them to the ninja hospital. 

Last but not least, the flippant attitude to potential death. If they are denied magic, it stands to reason that their medical care is lesser, too. Perhaps civilians as a whole are used to death, or maybe this man has some personal resentment due to the loss of a close one? 

It’s something to think about, anyways. From what I remember, Chloe White, a sealing expert who originated from Arcacia and Setsuna’s personal idol, defected because of extremely poor working conditions. And, importantly, she wasn’t a mage. If those working conditions stem from her being a civilian, then that further supports my working theory. Of course, that’s just guesswork at best. 

“Can I set her down on the floor here?” I ask, being sure to maintain my pleading tone. Helpfully, Mari coughs again, further emphasizing the fact that she’s supposedly dying. 

“Yes.” 

_Time to take a chance._

“Do you have anything I can wrap her wounds with?” I ask. He visibly starts in surprise. 

“Bandages? You don’t have a wand, or magic, or anything like that?” 

_Got him._

The slightly sardonic tone gives it away — this man, for one reason or another, resents or dislikes magi.

“No, sir. I’m not able to do anything like magic.” I say earnestly. In an instant, his demeanor changes, going from standoffish and aloof to genuinely concerned.

“Well, in that case, I do have some bandages. Let me fetch them for you.” He heads off, deeper into the house. I take a moment to look around and am once again surprised. I expected something different, but things really do look the same around here as they do in the peasant villages in Alune, at least so far as I’ve seen. How strange.

The man doesn’t possess much of an accent, nor is his vocabulary especially different — that much is quite surprising. I suppose the differences between us aren’t nearly as pronounced as I would have thought.

 _“What now?”_ Mari mouths at me.

 _“I didn’t expect things to be so easy.”_ I admit. _“You don’t have a wound that would necessitate any healing, though, which is going to be a problem when he comes back shortly.”_

She seems to take a breath, as if composing herself. _“You know what you need to do, then.”_

I flinch as I realize what she’s insinuating, and almost protest before I realize the time and place. 

_Damn._

Without a word, I unseal a knife from the seal array on my waist and stab her as gently as possible in the abdomen, being sure to angle it in a way that doesn’t pierce anything vital. She winces, but otherwise doesn’t react as I quickly seal the weapon back where it belongs, before applying pressure to the wound. 

Just in time, too, as the man comes back in, bringing bandages over and handing them to me. I review what I know of mundane healing — frankly, not much, but I’ve picked up on the basics under Hikaru. 

“Please boil some water for me and prepare as clean of a cloth as you can manage.” I request as I tear through the lower part of Mari’s shirt, exposing the injury to the open air. Infection would normally be a concern, but Mari’s aberration ensures she won’t have to worry about that. The same goes for Users in general — our robust internal systems granted to us as a result of our qi ensures that infection isn’t a concern. 

“Understood. Is there anything else you need?” He asks. 

“No, that should be good for now.”

“Alright, I’ll get those as fast as I can for you.” He departs once more, presumably to begin boiling the water as requested. The second he’s out of sight, Mari raises her head to shoot me a dirty look.

_“Do you have an endgame in mind? You aren’t planning on actually wiping me down with a boiling hot, filthy cloth, are you?”_

_“To be completely honest, I have no idea what I’m doing now. I’m just playing along. It’s taking all of my concentration just to make sure I don’t slip up.”_

She scowls. _“And you were wondering if_ **_I_ ** _was a good actor?”_

 _“You have the easy part.”_ I retort. It doesn’t help that I’m not the most social of individuals, either. Keeping up the submissive attitude alone was taxing on my limited ability to act, because I frankly am not sure how to.

Faking the emotion is easy — if I dip into my Veil, I can throw away what pride I have without any fuss. The problem, of course, is creating an authentic impression. In the end, I just channeled a bit of Setsuna, and that seemed to do the trick.

_“Well, all of that aside, now what? We were just supposed to be here to get new clothes! We’ve wasted enough time as is!”_

_“Better patience than being caught. We’ll achieve nothing at all if we die here...and I have an idea. There’s no harm in staying here overnight, if we’re allowed to.”_

She still looks concerned, but accepts my reasoning, lapsing back into ‘unconsciousness’. 

“The water is boiling. As for the cloth, will this work?” The man comes back and offers me a white cloth — it’s clearly seen better days, but I suspect that it really is the best he has. 

“If we boil it, it should be fine.” To be frank, I have no idea whether or not that’s true, but it’s a moot point.

“Understood.” For whatever reason, he defers easily to me. Is that, perhaps, a consequence of living in an oppressive society? I shouldn’t read too much into everything, though — after all, most of this _is_ guesswork. Making dangerous assumptions could prove fatal.

“What is your name?” I ask, pretending to work. The question makes him tense.

“…Why do you need to know?” He asks suspiciously. 

Not wanting to anger him, I backtrack. “I just wanted to know the name of the man who helped me, that’s all. If you would prefer me not to know, that is fine, as well.” 

He seems to relax minutely with my explanation. “I see. My name is John.” 

_John, huh? Then there’s Chloe White…I think I’m sort of getting the hang of this naming thing…_

“Ah, I see. I have no last name to speak of, but I go by Francis.” I offer, both to test the waters and to help relax him. 

Out of the man’s sight, Mari twitches imperceptibly. 

“No last name? Why is that?” He asks, seeming more confused than suspicious. Good.

“I was abandoned at childbirth, and have no idea who my family could be.” I say evasively, as if sensitive about the subject. 

“Ah, sorry about that. I hadn’t meant to bring up a sore subject for you.”

“Oh, it’s...alright. I’ve had years to get over it.” A slight awkwardness fills the air, but as I anticipate, the conversation naturally diverts towards the obvious thing:

“What happened to her?” He asks, gesturing at Mari as he sits down on a chair near her. 

Thankfully, I’ve had some time to come up with a good story.

“I’ve been wandering around the forest for a while when I’d encountered her. As I said earlier, I’m pretty sure she was stabbed, but I don’t know by who or what.” This part of the lie is risky — if he reports it to the authorities, especially the magical ones, it could cause us a bit of trouble. My story should hold against the mundane patrol, but against the magical…I’m less sure. For all I know, they can use their magic to identify a lie the same way Mari can.

He frowns. “Someone’s going around stabbing people in the forest? Perhaps…this will get those magi off of their asses…” 

_Opportunity._

“No!” I shake my head. “Not them!” He looks startled by my vehemence. “Inform the town patrol, but not them!”

“You don’t trust them?” 

I take a gamble. “I told you I was abandoned at childhood, didn’t I? My parents were magi themselves, but they ditched me when they realized I didn’t have the _gift_.” 

And…it pays off. “Of course they would.” He hisses, hatred filling his eyes. “Those bastard magi don’t understand the meaning of _family_ at all, throwing away us _lowborn_ left and right like we’re trash.”

So there is some sort of class divide between magicals and non-magicals. Although this also holds true for us ninja, we don’t mock our non-Users. They play an important role in society. Truly, finding this John was a gem. So long as we pretend to be ‘lowborn’ ourselves and fuel his hatred, we have an ally. 

But for now…

“Damn straight. They deserve to _burn_ for all they’ve done.” 

His visage turns vicious. “Yes. If only I could catch the eye of the _Resistance._ ” 

My eyes widen. That sounds important. 

“The Resistance?” I ask, not needing to fake my confusion.

He narrows his eyes. “Francis, can you keep a secret?” 

I laugh as bitterly as possible. “My whole damn life has been a bloody secret. I can keep one more.” 

As expected, at the reference to my ‘mage parents’, his eyes flash with anger. 

“Good. The Resistance are a bunch of good magi and non-magi that are aiming to topple the current government and instate a democracy.” 

I nod, pretending to be unfazed even though I’m quite surprised to hear about this. “Ah, so the enemy of the enemy is our friend?” 

“Yes. And I suspect you two can help me.” 

“How so?”

He points at our clothing. “If you wanted to infiltrate, you should have worn different clothing. You’re a ninja, aren’t you? But it’s as you say — the enemy of the enemy is my friend. I suspect our goals are not so different, no?” 

_Well. So much for our cover. Luckily, it seems that our goals align, at least temporarily._

“I’m…inclined to agree with you.” I say reluctantly. 

“You _are_ ninja, right?” He asks. 

“Yes. Alune.” I volunteer the information freely. It isn’t important to hide, I think, what with Arcacia invading as we speak. 

His eyes widen in delight. “Alune? Excellent. Very good. And I suppose your friend is another ninja, right?” 

“She is.” Mari says blandly from her position on the ground. “A pretty good one, too.”

“If you’re so good, how’d you get stabbed?” He snarks.

“On purpose. I had our friend here stab me with a knife so we could pull off our deception.” She says, sitting up despite the clear injury.

“You…volunteered to be stabbed on purpose just for this?” He asks, sounding amazed.

“Of course. I’m not afraid of a little pain. I’ve spent my whole life staring it in the face, anyways. What’s one more stab wound?”

I walk over and press my hand over the injury, my hand glowing and healing the relatively clean wound within a few seconds. John stares, looking a mixture of impressed and surprised.

“Do you need any healing yourself?” I ask the non-User, once I’ve finished with Mari. “You look fine, but I don’t know the kind of conditions you’ve been forced to live in.” 

He starts, surprised. “I…yes, my ankle suffers from a lot of chronic pain. The doctors don’t know what’s going on, and…the magi won’t give it the time of day.”

I nod, leaning down and scanning his ankle with a hand filled with blue qi. He jerks, surprised, but otherwise remains still, letting me do my work.

“Well, qi healing can’t be performed on those without access to their own, and _that_ in itself isn’t something you can do anything about, but…” I muse silently. 

_In Alune, had he gone to the hospital himself, he would have been healed just fine by someone who specializes in healing non-Users._

“Well, I think I can help. I can see the problem, anyways. Your joints are worn down, and I bet that causes you a bit of pain, doesn’t it?” I frown, deciding to try something. Calling on my Etheria, I squeeze a tiny, miniscule ‘drop’ of it out, so to speak, and infuse it into the man’s ankle, directing it with my intent. It works, rejuvenating his entire body, and reversing the damage done to his weak foot. 

_I didn’t expect any side effects given that I’ve healed Setsuna to a far greater degree, and that girl doesn’t possess much more innate power than he does._

“It…it feels so much better! What did you do? I thought you said healing wouldn’t work?” He asks, flexing his ankle as I let it go.

“It doesn’t.” I confirm, standing up. “But with enough determination—“ 

“You didn’t use _Etheria_ , did you?” Mari hisses out. I shoot her a quelling glance, but it’s too late.

“Etheria?” John asks.

“He sacrificed some of his Life Energy to rejuvenate your body.” Mari says flatly.

“He wha—“ 

“First and foremost, our powers are used for good.” I recite. “For every kill, we protect ten times that. We are the shield of the people, and the sword of the village. That is the burden of qi, and the purpose of ninja. To strike at the enemy from the shadows, and to defend our country. _Hikaru Kozakura_. Those words are a common philosophy amongst our people.” I say, and it’s even true. “Power is meaningless without purpose. We can choose to use our powers for good or for evil. I do not know what purpose your magi are using their power for, but they are clearly…lacking in their duty, if they could have done such a thing without resorting to such measures.” 

There’s a moment of silence as the other two process my words. Mari, in particular, looks shocked to hear something like that coming from me. But I’ve been thinking about this for a while, ever since I was promoted to third-star level. Those words that Katsuo left me with:

_“Understand, Yuki. Emotion has no place in the ninja world. But yet, it is everything that makes you human. It’s up to you to identify where you stand. Are you a human first, or a ninja? Which is better for the village? Which is better for you?”_

_“Which is best for the people you want to protect?”_

His question had targeted my methods, but I’d been thinking about it past just that. 

_Why_ do I want to be a ninja?

To protect Setsuna. At first, that had been my only answer. But then I met others: Sayaka, who I had grown closer to; Mari, our seemingly prickly teammate who revealed her true colors and was actually a pretty good person; Hikaru, my mentor and master; Katsuo, my teacher and handler; Kitaro and Mirai, civilian children who I wanted to protect. 

And now, something else has been added.

Pride. Pride for the village that I used to resent. 

Seeing Arcacia, seeing the bitterness it generates in its civilians, in its inhumane treatments, in the way it separates magicals and non-magicals and, far more importantly, _dehumanizes_ non-magicals…

And, though I know it’s unreasonable to hold an entire country accountable for the actions of a single family, hearing about the way that the royalty will throw away a simple, earnest, kind child for the simple flaw of being born without magic...

I can’t help but feel pride. Pride that Alune isn’t a place like this. That our judgments are made not on the perceived value of your born talent, but by _what you might become._

And now, I want to protect it. I want to keep Alune a place where Kitaro and Mirai can play in the park without fear of harm, with laughter in the air and smiles on their faces.

_After experiencing what I might become, I can no longer resent Alune for wanting to kill people like me. I brushed against the surface of my true Ice, and what I felt — what I experienced — I understand, now._

John nods. “You’ll be perfect for the Resistance, then. The magi there…they feel the exact same way as you do.” 

I nod, feeling determination burn up in my chest. “That being said, I can’t stay forever. I have to return to my village, and soon, but not before I damage their war efforts.”

“War efforts?” He asks, surprised. “I haven’t heard about anything like that.”

“Unsurprising — they likely don’t want to announce it. It’s a sneak attack, after all. From what I’ve…heard, they’re planning on sweeping across all of Lunaria at once, claiming as much land as possible, then sieging any points of resistance — namely, the ninja villages. It’s very ambitious, but a good plan — magi have communication abilities dramatically beyond ours and can coordinate better, making such a sweep much easier. Additionally, the different ninja villages do not frequently cooperate outside of certain alliances, so our forces will be divided.”

“I see…” He says, frowning. “This is very good news — well, not for you, but for the Resistance. If they’re in the middle of war, their forces at home will be less — especially in this kind of all-out war. Any impact we can make will be huge — hell, we could begin assassinating lower-level lords, with the lack of manpower they’ll be suffering from.” 

I nod. “I agree. I’m sure they’ll be on guard, though, for exactly those reasons.” 

That’s when he gives Mari and I an appraising look. “But we have something they aren’t expecting — ninja. They definitely won’t be expecting any of you, since you guys are supposed to be getting caught up in their sweeping invasion.” 

“That’s true.” I admit. “We need to go after people that would cripple the war effort, though, as we’re on a time limit. This Resistance, once we get their attention, can target the ones oppressing the people. Do you have any idea what their numbers are like?” 

It’s fairly obvious by now that the man is a member of this so-called Resistance, and has been scouting us out ever since he realized that we were ninja. As ninja, we obviously aren’t magi, and are moreover certainly approving of the general goals of the Resistance.

“I’m not quite sure.” He admits. “But…probably at least fifty thousand people.”

I can’t stop myself from reacting in surprise. A secret underground organization has that many people? How on _earth_ could they not have been caught?! The thought that he might be lying briefly crosses through my mind, but I dismiss it. Mari would have noticed — indeed, she’s staring attentively at him, clearly thinking over his words herself. 

“So you’re willing to provide us with information?” She asks. John laughs.

“Information? That’s the least of what they’ll be willing to give, I think. I _know_ that they’ll jump on this opportunity. We’ve been hearing rumors about some kind of war effort, but we don’t have any spies in the upper echelons, thanks to their magical screening. Your word is proof when combined with the conditional evidence of dramatically lesser mage numbers in the country.” 

“I see.” I glance at Mari, who nods.

_He hasn’t lied._

“Then…please put us in contact with these people.”

He grins. “Will do. You two probably need somewhere to rest, right? You can stay in the attic. I won’t be able to get to these people until the morning, so feel free to rest or do whatever it is you need to do. I’ll be sure to bring you guys clothes and food in the morning, as well.”

“Thanks.” I say in return. 

He shows us to the bathroom first, where we clean ourselves via my Water element before taking us up to the attic.


	92. (4.1.2) Culture Shock, Part 2

#  **4.1.2 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Culture Shock, Part Two**

The room is cramped, but not overly so. The attic is made out of wood, the same as the civilian homes in Alune. It isn’t dusty at all, indicating the place sees a lot of use. There isn’t any light, but our host seems to have correctly assumed we wouldn’t need any. Even in the pitch black, my reinforced eyes make it easy to make out my surroundings, if with a certain lack of detail. It’s also, surprisingly enough, tall enough for us to stand up in.

Upon locking ourselves in, Mari immediately begins to divest herself of some of her clothing, peeling herself out of her bloodstained clothing. Eventually, she’s left only with some mostly-clean bandages around her chest and a pair of simple, functional black panties. 

“I have an extra set of clothing, and we’re…pretty close to the same size.” I offer, eyeing her body. “It’s going to be a bit tight around the chest, for obvious reasons.”

“That works.” She agrees, not looking particularly embarrassed. I unseal the clothing, and soon enough, she’s dressed in a simple fitted black shirt. As I expected, it stretches around her bust quite a bit, but…

_Huh. I’d thought she was pretty flat-chested, but she has a bust larger than Setsuna’s. And, if I’m looking correctly, those bandages are binding her chest, not just covering them._

“The pants don’t really fit.” She mutters. 

“Not surprising. Your waist is a bit larger than mine is.”

Shrugging, she tosses them back at me, and I reseal them. Since our heights are so similar, the shirt doesn’t really cover anything below her waist, but there’s nothing we can do about that.

“Keep an eye on John for me?” I ask. Thankfully, Mari’s ability to detect bioelectricity is an innate part of her aberration, and doesn’t require me to lift the suppressing seal on her. 

“Of course. He’s back downstairs, presumably going into what I think is his bedroom.”

I nod. “Thanks.” 

She sighs, leaning back against the wall. There’s a wall that offers a flat surface to rest against, rather than the angled slope of the ceiling, and for that we’re both thankful. We’ll both be fine without bedding, but this small luxury helps.

“Hungry?” I ask, quickly unsealing a pair of ration bars.

“Yes.” 

I toss one to her, and she catches it, smoothly unwrapping and biting into it.

“Yum.” She says blandly, eliciting a snort out of me. 

There’s a lot to talk about, but I’m not sure where to begin. Thankfully, Mari spares me the trouble.

“He was telling the truth entirely near the end. In fact, he only told two lies, and both of them were immaterial for the most part.”

“What were they?”

“When he apologized for bringing up a sore subject, and when he said that the water was boiling.”

I snort. “So he was onto us even from then, huh?” 

“I guess so. There isn’t much we could have done about that, though. We’re just lucky that we didn’t get picked up by the patrol as we were sneaking down here. We couldn’t really afford to be picky about who we found.”

I nod. Our approach was messy, but there really weren’t any better options I could think of. Certainly, we could have come up with a perfectly stealthy approach, but we _were_ limited by time and the need to not be caught standing outside. The opportunity we’ve found ourselves, though, is absolutely incredible. With so many people, with Arcacia weakened due to its invasion? There are a _lot_ of targets we can pick from. The question, now, is one of viability.

Which targets would be the most effective use of the limited time we have?

A lot of options. We need information to narrow them down, information that this Resistance should be able to provide. Their knowledge of both Arcacia in general as well as their magic, infrastructure, and leadership will be absolutely invaluable. And if in return we have to pull off an assassination or destroy a fort? Well, we were planning to do that anyways. 

I don’t anticipate any kind of treachery from them, either. Our goals line up very strongly. We’re not here to destroy Arcacia, just inconvenience them — and a good way to do that is to assassinate political and military leaders. Those same people are the ones that are most likely obstructing the Resistance. 

“We’ll have to do a lot of talking tomorrow, huh?” She says out loud, correctly guessing my thoughts.

“Most likely. I want to be able to coordinate a strike soon. We can’t stop the invasion force itself, but we can most certainly help cause substantial damage from within their country, if we play our cards right.” 

“Yes…hopefully, Setsuna and Sayaka make it back quickly, as well. Perhaps some of the other ninja villages might hold out long enough for us to give them some backup.” 

I wince at the reminder of the other half of our team. I’m sure they’ll be alright, though. They’re both of the dependable sort. 

“…So, Yuki…I see you’ve finally found a purpose.” 

“I was wondering if you were going to bring that up or not.” I say, sighing softly.

“Of course. It’s something important to you.” I blink, surprised at her genuine honesty, but in retrospect…this is sort of who she is. 

“Well…yes, I have.” 

“Kitaro and Mirai?” She guesses.

“Yep.” 

“Arcacia being a shitty place in comparison to Alune?”

“Yep.”

“Knew it.” She says, grinning. 

“That isn’t all of it.” 

“Oh, Setsuna as well, of course.” 

_It’s a bit more complicated than that, but, essentially, I suppose._

I glance at her. “Her, and you, and Sayaka, and…Katsuo and others.” I almost drop Hikaru’s name, but catch myself. 

Actually, come to think of it, I’m not sure why I’m still hiding that from her. It’s always been out of habit, I suppose…after all, there’s no real reason to hide it from Mari, who I’m trusting with my life right now. For all her quirks, I trust her discretion. 

Hell, I’ve trusted her with far more important things, like my life. That being said, this isn’t the time to drop that bomb on her. Although we’re relatively safe right now, I don’t need to give her more to wonder and worry about. 

“…I’m glad.” She closes her eyes, leaning her head back against the wall, empty wrapper held loosely in one hand. “You know, I wasn’t really sure about you guys at first.”

I snort. “You don’t say?”

“I mean after that, dummy.” She says without any heat behind her words. “I was wondering what your attachment to the village was. You guys seemed so…empty.”

I wince, knowing the reasons for both of those. Setsuna didn’t have a life outside of being a ninja and me, and I was much the same. Thankfully, I’d learned to control my Veil, or it would have been far worse. 

“But that changed. You started opening up, paying attention to others besides Setsuna…you _changed_. And in a good way. You found a reason to really care about what you do. A person like that, someone who has a purpose — that’s the kind of person I’m proud to call a comrade, and a friend.”

“I, er…I see.” I say awkwardly. I’m never sure how to respond to her when she gets like this. “I’m…glad to have you as a friend, too, Mari. And definitely as a comrade.” 

She laughs. “Why, because I’d kick your ass if I weren’t?”

“Yep.” 

The conversation trails off for a bit as we both sit silently, thinking. 

“Has your purpose changed?” I ask. 

_“So I’ll fight to protect them until the day I die. You could say that…I live through the people I care about the most.”_

Those words of hers played a role in shaping me into the person I am today, too. Someone who could decide to sacrifice myself for the village, not out of obligation or duty, but out of _choice._

She smiles. “Changed, no. Just…expanded.” 

“I see.” I say, and I do. Like me, she’s also found more people to care about, people she’s willing to die to protect. 

Yet, our purposes have critically diverged. Her concern is rooted for humanity in general, to where she would sacrifice herself to save a few thousand villagers that she doesn’t know. I, on the other hand, only really concern myself with the people I really care about…and, now, my village. 

“Hey…captain…” Mari whispers in the darkness. 

“Yes?” I ask, a bit wary. Her voice seems unusually fragile right now, and I’m not sure if it’s because of our previous conversation, or— 

“You’re such a reliable person.”

I blink. “…Thanks?” 

“Do you…do you think I can rely on you a little more?” She asks. 

“Of course.” I say, unsure where the conversation is going, but wanting to give her at least that much comfort. Her tone feels very familiar, but completely foreign at the same time—

“I’m…scared.”

_Oh._

Mari, scared? I’ve never, ever heard that from her. With her unwavering pride and optimism, the thought just feels…strange. But then I internally chastise myself. For all of her strength and willpower, she’s still human. 

“Of what?” I ask. 

“We’re…this whole mission is just…too ridiculous. We aren’t supposed to be here. _I’m_ not even ready for this kind of thing, and you…? I’m trying, Yuki. Trying so hard to be hopeful…but I can’t help but feel the walls closing in. And this is the _easy_ part, you know? We got so lucky…but still, I’m terrified. I’m so scared that we won’t make it back home. I’m not ready to die…and I don’t think you are either. I just…I want to run, but I _can’t_ …” She trails off. “I don’t…I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Taking a page out of my interactions with Setsuna, I lean over and gently pull Mari into a hug. 

And then hesitate, because I’m not sure what to say to her, either. I’ve felt those same anxieties myself, but rather than face them head on, I’ve locked them away behind the Veil. I don’t know how to confront them. Everything she’s said is true, after all. We’ve made it this far only because of luck, but there’s still so far to go. I don’t even know what we’ll be doing tomorrow — everything’s being made up as we go along, and things are progressing so damn quickly…

I can’t even lie to her to comfort her. Her Storm aberration will figure me out if I do, and that’ll make her feel worse, not better. 

So what do I say? 

“…If all else fails, Mari…” I murmur into her vaguely cinnamon-and-sweat scented hair, “I can promise you this much. I won’t let you die on this mission.” 

She flinches in my arms. “Yuki, I don’t want you to die either.” 

“Then we’ll protect each other, just as we always have.” I say simply. 

“Ah…haha. Yes, that’s…that works.” I can feel her making a vague nodding motion against my chest. “Yes, alright.” 

I smile softly. “I’m sorry I can’t say much more than that. In truth, I’m just as scared as you are. But I’m not going to let that stop me from what needs to be done.” 

“I…I understand. That’s…that’s all I needed to hear. I just have to keep going, right?”

“Right.” 

“Could you…please hold me for a little longer?”

I blink. “Sure.” 

...

...

...

To my surprise, Mari is the one to wake me up, instead of the other way around. As usual, I snap awake instantly.

“He’s coming.” She mouths to me. Moments later, a series of knocks ring out against the hard wood of the attic. 

“Identify yourself.” I state, knowing full well who it is but wanting to hide the fact that Mari can detect even non-Users. It’s always good practice to hide your true capabilities.

“It’s me, John.” His voice says, muffled by the wood. 

“Alright.” I acknowledge. “Come on in.” 

He does so, his head poking out from the floor. 

“Good morning. What time is it?” The Storm Mistress asks.

“Good morning, and seven-o-clock.” 

_How convenient. That’s about the time I woke up in Alune, anyways. And it seems like the proper rest did me a world of good — my energy reserves are, while not completely topped off, no longer overstrained. And they’ll continue recovering slowly during the day._

“I’ve brought food and clothing for you guys.” John says, lifting two plates of bacon, eggs, and potatoes up, as well as a pile of clothes. “I’m afraid I don’t really have any women’s clothing on me, though, let alone undergarments.” 

Mari shrugs. “That’s fine.”

“Will she stand out?” I ask.

“In men’s peasant clothing? Undoubtedly.” 

“Alright.” I muse. “Do you mind acquiring clothing for her, as well, when you go out and meet your contacts?” 

“Not at all.” He says pleasantly. “If you could come down here, so I can get an idea of your measurements? I’ll just approximate it — it’ll be temporary until we can sneak you into guard or mage outfits.”

“Sure.” She calls out, making her way to the hatch and down the ladder. It only takes a minute before she comes back up, bringing the plates and my clothing as she does. 

“Alright, I’ll be back in…three hours or so?” He guesses. “Don’t be too alarmed if I’m not back right away, but if I’m not back before evening consider the house compromised. I’ll be as quick as I can. Try not to go outside unless you absolutely must, and if you do, make sure she stays inside. She’ll draw too much attention until I can get her clothing.” 

“Will do.” I acknowledge, idly noting that he still hasn’t asked for our _real_ names. 

He departs, leaving us to dig hungrily into our food after I briefly check it for poison. It tastes excellent. 

“I’d forgotten to come up with a cover name for myself.” Mari muses. “What should I do?”

I shrug. “I have no idea how to name anything with Arcacian conventions. I simply borrowed a name I heard before.”

“I know.” She says, amused. “Ooh, I know. I’ll settle with…Alice.” 

“Why that name?” I ask curiously.

“If you add the first letter of my real name to it…” 

_Malice._

I roll my eyes. “How…completely unfitting of you.” 

She snorts. “You’ve never _seen_ me mad.” 

I raise an eyebrow. “First time we met?”

“Not even _close_. _”_

Now I can’t help but feel intrigued. “When we get back, remind me to piss you off sometime.” I’m pretty sure her Storm aberration would synergize very well with the emotion, likely becoming even _more_ intense.

Her eyes glitter. “I _dare_ you.”

_Okay, maybe not._

“Now hurry up and finish your food so you can change.” She orders. “I want to see you in regular clothing.” 

Snorting, I do as she says, quickly donning the clothing. It isn’t anything particularly special, consisting of a light brown tunic, dark brown trousers, and brown sandals. Acceptable enough, although at the first sign of a fight, I’m ditching the sandals. Reinforcement is the best protection outside of specific ninja footwear, but I tend to go barefoot and rely specifically on reinforcement and my aura anyways.

It’s very similar stuff to what John himself wears, although with slightly different shades of brown. It’s rather uncomfortable, but that’s easily ignored by tightening my reinforcement slightly. 

“Not bad.” Mari critiques. “You make a better ninja, though.” 

I roll my eyes. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You do look good, though.” She says honestly. 

“Um…thanks?” 

She laughs. “Are you embarrassed?”

To my dismay, I realize that I am.

“Shut up.” I say bluntly.

She just laughs harder. 

…

The downtime gives us a little time to relax. Mari idly runs through a series of lightning-fast punches and kicks, obviously trying to get her mind off of the upcoming events. I, in turn, have my own things to do. 

“…Isn’t that…?” Mari stops her exercises to stare at the thing I’ve unsealed from a scroll.

“Yes. It’s the sword belonging to one of the mages I fought.”

 _Anna_. 

“It has a good balance.” I say, measuring the blade in one hand. “A little bit on the thin side, double-edged, and very straight. It’s a little stiffer than I’d expect, but the loss of durability is probably compensated for via magic. I ripped apart the hilt, so it isn’t usable anymore, but…”

Mari blinks.

“I still want to bring this in for further analysis. It’s a lot like my own blades, actually. Except mine is black. Well, there are other differences, too. This blade is also really light. It seems like it’s mostly meant for slashing, but you could thrust with it, too. But it’s so light that you would definitely need to use magic if you wanted to, say, hack off someone’s arm. But I imagine that the sword is just a vessel for the magic, so such a weakness would be easily compensated for, and—“ 

“…What?” 

“The sword sucks at being a sword, but you can make it better with magic.” 

“Oh. Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” 

I shoot her a flat look, and she responds with a teasing grin. I’m sure she knew most of what I was talking about — it’s impossible not to, not with Katsuo as our former handler. Hell, she wields a blade herself, even if it’s inexpertly at best. 

_She just likes playing the ditz for fun, I think. Mostly._

But Mari’s definitely not dumb, or even lacking knowledge. It’s just that her specialties revolve more around cultural and societal practices, such as religion and geography and making all of Alune her playground. 

“Weren’t there gems embedded in the hilt of those swords? At least, the ones belonging to the mage knights?” 

“Yep.” I unseal the pale crystal, weighing it in one hand. It doesn’t seem to give off any magic, though. “This is the magical focus, I think.” 

Mari nods. “All of their wands have gems on the tips. I think the one I was fighting against had a sapphire tip.”

“Did she use primarily water attacks?” I ask, curious. 

“She opened with one.” She nods. “But once I revealed my element, she never used it again. She stuck to mostly Fire after that, and a little bit of Wind and Earth.” 

_That lines up with what I know. Anna stuck to primarily Wind, but didn’t hesitate to use little pieces and bits of other elements. So there’s a primary specialty, but it seems a little easier to be a generalist, or even to specialize in multiple elements. Just like us._

In this manner, three hours pass. I meditate, feeling out the changes to my soul and giving my body more time to recuperate. Mari alternates between exercising, futile attempts at meditating herself, napping, and poking fun at me.

Eventually, we’re able to hear the faint sound of the door unlocking, causing both of us to stiffen. Have we been compromised? Betrayed? Or—

“He’s brought friends. Two men, one woman. The woman’s a mage.” 

Now that I’m looking for it, I can feel her faint aura. It probably has something to do with the fact that magi have a much weaker grasp on their internal power than most ninja — this one, for example, seems to have a similar presence to perhaps Setsuna, at best. 

“Hm…Resistance friends, I’d guess. I think he would have brought a lot more people if he’d been planning to betray us, and…to be frank, had he chosen to do that, I don’t think we’d have any chance of escaping. Let’s just take him at his word.”

Mari is clearly dissatisfied with doing something so risky, but she trusts me enough to accept my words. We sit tight, and soon enough:

“Hey, are you two there? It’s John. I’ve brought some people who’d like to meet you, and a change of clothes for…uh…” 

“Alice.” Mari calls out. “Could I have the clothes first? I’m not really in a decent state.”

I’m well aware that _Alice_ doesn’t give two shits about decency — however, she does care about making a good impression, and she can’t do that in one of my shirts and her underwear. 

“Sure.” The hatch opens, and he plants the clothes on the floor without looking. Without hesitation, Mari strips, tossing her shirt back to me as she pulls on the rest of her outfit.

“How do I look?” She asks. 

Well, it’s certainly the first time I’ve ever seen her in a dress, if it’s accurate to call her clothing one. It consists of a laced blue vest, a sort of white apron thing, and a brown long skirt that falls to her ankles. Her hair is wrapped in a band that flattens and contains it. Overall, it’s completely impractical to fight in, but it’s necessary to blend in.

“Doesn’t look like peasant clothes to me.” I note. The clothing looks both more fancy and more comfortable than my own.

“That’s because it isn’t.” John calls out. “It’s what you might expect of a lesser noble, and she’ll need at least that much to be taken at all seriously by anyone not in the know.”

Mari winces. It would seem like peasant women are the lowest rung of the hierarchy, then. 

“Understood.” I say, glancing at the brunette. She nods at me.

_Showtime._

  
  



	93. (4.1.3) Culture Shock, Part 3

#  **4.1.3 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Culture Shock, Part Three**

“We’re coming down now.” I announce. 

“Alright.”

With only a brief moment of hesitation, the two of us descend the ladder.

John is there, next to the three people he’s brought with him. The two men are dressed very similarly to John and I — simple peasant clothing. No, the interesting one is the woman besides them.

She wears a long black cloak that travels all the way to her ankles, wrapping it around her front so that her clothes are hidden from sight. Emerald eyes analyze me critically, and blonde hair peeks from the shadows.

More telling, though, is the slight sense of power I can feel from her. I narrow my eyes, trying to gauge her strength now that I’m closer.

_…Hm? I can’t feel anything now._

The mage _smirks_ at me.

“Good morning.” Mari interrupts. “Might I have the pleasure of knowing your names, and the purpose of your visit?”

The two men glance at the mage, apparently waiting for her to go first. So she’s the leader, then? The woman ignores all of it, continuing her intense staring match with me. 

Now the question is….just how much authority does she have over them? Will the social awkwardness generated by the mage’s intense focus on me override their desire to let their superior go first?

As it turns out, it does. “My name is Albert.” The first man says, before gesturing to his compatriots. “And this is Harry and—“

“Claire.” The mage interrupts, somehow managing to sound bright and cheerful despite cutting him off. “It’s a pleasure to meet you two as well. We’re here to answer any questions you guys might have about Arcacia as a whole, and talk strategy, amongst other things.” 

I noticed that Mari stiffened slightly when the mage introduced herself. A lie, most likely. That’s fine, given that we’re lying about our names, too. 

“That sounds like a good idea.” I say agreeably. “Of course, my partner and I are worried about the potential of any…unpleasantries, accidental or otherwise.” With a simple sleight of hand trick, I unseal a glittering gold coin. “I’d like you to swear your good intentions on this artifact for me. It will detect any falsities, conscious or otherwise, so even if you have been unintentionally waylaid by a rogue mage, we’ll be made aware.” 

Of course I don’t have anything like that. Where the hell would I have even gotten anything like that from? No, it’s a simple bluff, and one that’ll also help us detect whether or not they are planning any subterfuge. By forcing them to outright state their intentions, Mari can bring her detection to bear.

I’ve worded the request as politely as I can manage, but it’s still a rude thing to ask, and insinuates plenty of unpleasant things. To help assuage this, I go first. 

“I, Francis White, solemnly swear to avoid inflicting harm on any of those gathered today, so long as their intentions remain honest and good and so long as they do not betray me.” 

“I, Alice Mari, solemnly swear to avoid inflicting harm on any of those gathered today, so long as their intentions remain honest and good and as long so they do not betray me.” 

It goes on down the line seamlessly, no one hesitating until the mage picks up the coin and gives it a speculative look.

“So that’s how…well, then. I, Claire Redfield, solemnly swear to avoid inflicting harm on any of those gathered today, so long as their intentions remain honest and good and so long as they do not betray me.”

I nod, wondering if she’s seen through my ploy. Can she detect lies? There’s enough uncertainty to make anything possible.

“Please give my partner and I a moment to consult.” I say, keeping a polite smile on my face. “We’d just like to organize our thoughts for a moment.”

“Please, go right ahead.” The blonde replies, a facetious smile on her own lips. 

Without further ado, Mari and I climb the ladder and shut the hatch.

“Who lied?”

“Just the mage, and only about her name.” She says, confirming my suspicions. “I don’t like her.” 

I shrug at her blunt words. 

“She’s clearly putting on a front of some kind.” I guess. “She didn’t break eye contact with me for more than three seconds at a time. Perhaps she’s planning on seducing me.” 

_It’s something Sayaka might try, after all._

“Don’t underestimate her.” Mari warns. “You’re still relatively inexperienced, despite your many good points, and if she knows what she’s doing she’s going to twist you like a rope.” 

“I won’t.” I promise softly. “Anyways, there’s a lot of information for us to learn. Split up? They won’t be stabbing us in the back, anyways, not with that promise they just took.”

“Agreed.” She whispers back. “Who goes where?”

“You handle the other two. Forget tactical information, we need to know how to blend it with the population first. We can handle actual strategy as a group — I suspect the mage will have very useful information — but we need to be able to move around and scout by ourselves. You’re the more social of the two of us and the one more experienced in such matters, so it’s better for you to handle that.” 

“Alright. And I suppose you’ll be getting information on magic and how to counter magi?” She asks. 

“Yes. You seem to already be perfectly capable of that, but I’m much less trained up. Also, it’s really good information to take back home.”

She nods. “Sounds good to me. Be safe, _Francis._ ” 

“You too, _Alice._ ”

We head back down.

“Apologies for the delay, but we’re ready now.” I turn to the cloaked mage. “Do you mind if we retire somewhere a bit more private? I wouldn’t want our conversation to interrupt theirs, and our conversation subjects will differ greatly from theirs, anyways.”

“Certainly.” The mage says courteously. “If you don’t mind, we could talk in the attic?” 

I consider it briefly. It isn’t soundproofed, so the odds of ambush there aren’t likely. So long as I watch out for poison and other sneaky traps, I should be just fine. 

And I’m positive Mari can handle herself.

“That sounds acceptable.” I say. 

Without delaying further, _Claire_ immediately turns and climbs up the ladder into the attic. I trade a glance with Mari — _be careful,_ she tells me without words — before following.

I let the hatch close behind me, sending the room plunging into near-darkness. I’d noticed that the room wasn’t entirely sealed from the outside world, through intentional design or otherwise, and that ought to serve as a further deterrent for the mage.

“It’s rather dark in here, isn’t it?” She muses, back turned to me. “Pardon me for a second, I’m going to cast a simple light spell, no need to panic — _Illuminate._ ” 

Instantly, the room is bathed in a soft candlelight glow. She turns around slowly, clearly to avoid alarming me, and her wand becomes visible, pointed downward and away from me. It’s little more than a thin stick with a small, embedded ruby at the tip. It’s simple and otherwise undecorated, but seems to be quite sturdy and appears to have seen much use, based on the scratches that cover it. It’s the source of the warm light that fills the room, the glow brightest at the tip.

Something else becomes notable, too — when she channels magic actively, her aura becomes notably more defined. Is it because of the connection to the magic, or some kind of resonance with her focus? 

“How much control do you have over that?” I ask curiously. An amused smile flits across her face.

“Depends on who you ask. Personally, I can go bright enough to inflict temporary blindness. Anyways, it’s quite hot here and I don’t feel like magically regulating my temperature, so I’m going to lose the cloak. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of questions when you see what I’m wearing, too.”

After her warning, she divests herself of the cloak, neatly folding it before turning back to me.

I narrow my eyes. Her outfit is nearly the same as Anna’s — black combat boots? Check. Stockings, skirt, travel pouch, sword, wand holster, blouse, badge, gloves, ribbon. All check. 

_That means she’s a mage-knight, too._

Unlike Anna’s clothing, though, her colors are a bit different. Instead of a yellow and silver theme, she sports red and gold. She shifts slightly, and I’m able to catch the sight of two glittering rubies embedded into bracelets on her wrists as well. They are shockingly large — perhaps the size of a small coin — and obviously important, but I’m unsure for what purpose.

As for the woman herself…as I’d noticed earlier, she has piercingly bright emerald eyes and long, golden blonde hair. She’s fairly petite, perhaps a centimeter shorter than Setsuna is. She has a slightly larger bust and hips, but it’s actually pretty obvious that she’s quite fit…again, similarly to the sealer.

 _A magus with this level of fitness? Anna was certainly comfortable with close-range combat and moving, but this girl has the body of a ninja._

Now that I’m able to look closely at her, it’s clear that she’s…about sixteen years old? No, wait, since she isn’t a ninja, that would be about twenty. Something in particular stands out about her clothing, the color motif…

“Let me guess, you’re a Fire specialist?” I ask sardonically, before something in her aura gives me pause. “Hm, hold on. No, you’re not _just_ a Fire specialist. I’m sensing…Wind and Water, as well, but the Water aspect is weak. Primary Fire, though.” 

She grins. “Yes, you’re correct on all counts. Are you a sensor? You detected all of that without any visible spell or energy manipulation, so does that manifest as a passive effect? Are all ninja like this?”

I realize belatedly that the magus is as curious about the ninja arts as I am about their magical system.

“No, I’m not a real sensor. My control over my power is good enough to detect uncontrolled energy, such as the aura of magi, for example. No, not all ninja are as good as I am in aural detection.” 

I leave out a lot of important details, especially the specifics of my abilities. Still, it’s plenty of information for her to process.

“I did have a question, though — that wand of yours isn’t your only magical focus, is it?” I ask, analyzing the subtle undercurrents of her aura. It’s perhaps the deepest I’ve ever looked into someone’s qi aura, short of my qi-mesh with Sayaka, and I’m only now coming to realize just how much there _is_ to detect. Here, my senses let me detect the faintest trickle of energy emanating from the two crystals on her wrist. 

“It isn’t.” She confirms with a small smile. “It isn’t even my main one. Ah, I wish I could duel you right now. I’m so curious about how ninja fight.” 

“Oh?” I say, a small grin on my own face as I lean closer. “I see you also think that fighting is the best way to get to know someone?” 

Emerald eyes glitter with excitement and challenge as she leans in as well. 

“Of course! How else can you get the measure of a man?!” 

I abruptly relax, returning to my original position. “Well, that’s too bad. We can’t be drawing attention to ourselves here, and I don’t really need to fight you anyways.” 

She frowns, thrown off by my sudden flip in attitude. 

“Not here, no, but at the nearest Resistance headquarters, there are plenty of training grounds with enough suppression wards to prevent any magical leakage.” A thought suddenly occurs to her. “Yeah, if you want me to talk, I want a duel.” 

_Well, that was easy._

Of course I want to fight a mage, especially one as interesting as this one. There’s nothing better than live combat to get you used to the limitations of an entire new style of energy manipulation. 

By pretending to be disinterested and stoking her obvious competitive spirit, I can wring concessions out of her for something I’d wanted to do anyways.

“I accept. Will you answer my questions in the meantime?” I ask. 

“Sure.” She says. “Ask away.” 

“Tell me more about the basics of your magic. How does magic fundamentally work? How does one cast a spell?” 

“Oh my, those are some complicated questions you’re asking.” Her eyes sparkle. “I like it. Magic is, for the most part, the usage of a magical foci to manipulate the external energy. In comparison, you ninja focus on _internal_ energy.” 

Well, she isn’t wrong. Chakra is learning how to control your internal qi, then manifesting it externally. We don’t start from the outside in — such a thing would be ridiculously backwards.

Or, come to think of it, isn’t that what Spellweavers do? That’s a special case, though. I put the thought to the side for now.

“By using our magical foci, magi are able to control the energy in the air and do one of two things with them — change the energy to match a certain _aspect_ , or absorb the energy to create a certain effect. This is _impure_ and _pure_ magic, respectively.” 

“Sorry to interrupt—“ I say, not at all sorry, “But is a magical focus required to do your magic?” 

“For most people, yes.” She says, shrugging. “Only people who really work on spellcasting without a focus will ever be able to do it, and even then, mostly for basic spells only. It takes so much time to perform magic without a foci — you can call that _wandless_ magic, although that’s a bit of a misnomer, since there are far more foci than just wands — that most people elect to do little more than learn how to summon objects to them.”

“What are the different types of spells?” I snap off. “So far, you’ve mentioned what appear to be two primary categories of magic, right?”

“Correct. Impure magic is almost entirely elemental — fire, water, air, earth. We call it that because we _contaminate_ the pure energy in the air, so to speak. In comparison, pure magic has nothing at all to do with the elements and often becomes internal. Impure magic makes up the majority of spells, and most of the pure magic learned is standardized.” 

“Could you give me an example of pure magic? And how do you go about _contaminating_ the air, so to speak?” 

“I’ll do you one better and give you two, since they’re related. Reinforcement magic and healing magic are both pure, although Earth and Water specialists respectively tend to do a bit better, for reasons we’re not too sure about.”

Interesting. It’s the same for our ninja, but all ninja have a minor reinforcement passive and healing factor as well. Is it because of our internal style of manipulation and therefore more intense internal energies?

“As for impure magic, well…it’s very difficult to explain to someone who isn’t a mage themselves. I can explain the steps, but I can’t possibly describe the specifics.”

“Understood. What are the steps, though?” 

“Step one is absorbing the external power into your magical focus. Step two is coloring the magic with the element you desire. Step three is releasing that power.” She says, an amused look on her face.

I pause, expecting her to continue. She continues to smirk.

“…Wait, that’s it?” 

“Yes. Magic is mostly intuitive. With enough talent, willpower, and creativity, you can do basically whatever you want.” She says. “As you can imagine, though, those who aren’t able to look beyond the surface aren’t able to be good magi.” 

I think about the implications. Ninja techniques usually require a great deal more than _three steps_ , although with enough practice, they can be shortened down to even one step. That requires a ton of control. However, her words imply that all impure spells take three steps. 

Hm…

“How does one become a magus?” I ask, putting aside the thought for later. 

She raises a delicate eyebrow. “That’s quite the question, isn’t it? Did you know that’s a state secret, and that revealing it is punishable by death?” 

“So is treason.” I counter, “And yet here you are.” 

She grins. “Heh. I was just messing with you anyways. But wel, I couldn’t tell you the details. Literally can’t — it’s been wiped from my mind. All I know is that there is a ritual involved.”

_So even she doesn’t know more than I do?_

“Perhaps that’s something you’ll be able to discover…” She pauses. “You’re a bit of a special one, aren’t you, Ice Ninja?”

I stiffen. 

_That’s right. Hikaru warned me that there were variants of_ **_that_ ** _ability that could pierce any attempt at hiding my true nature. This must be one of them._

But still, I’d rather feign ignorance. Another explanation might bring to light something I didn’t know before.

“How do you know that?”

She smiles. “Clairvoyance is an innate and rare gift, granted upon the completion of the initiation ritual for the lucky, and manifests in hundreds of different ways depending on the individual. It’s simply a different way to see the world, a so-called ‘second sight’. My particular gift, _Spirit Sight_ , allows me to see a representation of any individual I’m looking at, and lets me divine parts of their true nature. For you, I can see a great expanse of darkest ice, but within that shines a small but pure light. That’s why…I feel like I can trust you. Your darkness isn’t hidden at all — you’re straightforward, and at your core you _are_ a good person.” 

“You trust your gift that much?” I ask cautiously, surprised. 

“It’s never led me astray. And I trust in what I’ve seen in you. The sense of strength you have…” She hesitates. “It isn’t the strongest I’ve ever seen, but it’s there nonetheless _._ There’s something you want to protect, something you’ll do anything for.”

_Setsuna._

“You can sense all of this from a little bit of spirit light?” I ask skeptically.

“Of course I can. Light…light represents _hope_.” 

I blink. “You think I’m filled with _hope?”_ I ask bitingly. 

Emerald eyes stare unflinchingly into mine.

“I _know_ you are.” 

Her confidence gives me pause. Eventually, though, I shake my head, brushing my doubts away. They can wait until later. Much later.

“Whatever. What else can Clairvoyance do? Can someone read the future? Is something like that possible?” I ask, forcefully pushing the conversation forward.

_I know Setsuna was able to do that for a time, but only in Arcacia. And she also mentioned how raw and instinctive her visions were, certainly nothing controllable._

“We do have very slight future-sight abilities, but they’re unreliable and instinctive. We haven’t fully explored it, and we barely even understand it. The most useful form of Clairvoyance is _mage-sight_ , or the ability to detect magic through a visual representation. As you might imagine, this is incredibly useful for dissecting techniques or detecting ambient magic.”

I nod thoughtfully. “Going back on topic, regarding magi.” My eyes fall to the badge that’s pinned on her breast, three suns glimmering. “What is your ranking system?” 

“There’s five levels.” She fingers the icon on her uniform. “As you might imagine, this one says I’m at the third level. In order, they are: _Novice, Practitioner, Magician, Wizard,_ and _Archmage.”_

“What’s the approximate distribution of those ranks? What distinguishes them?” 

“Upon casting your first spell, you automatically become a Novice. Upon completing the Academy graduation examination, you become a Practitioner. Mastery of two elements or summoning a Familiar Spirit gets you the third rank, and Mastery of all four elements gets you Wizard. Archmage is a special rank that is granted for some kind of truly immense or amazing feat, and has Wizard as a prerequisite. There are perhaps less than two hundred living Archmages in Arcacia out of perhaps…oh, five hundred thousand magi?” 

I nod. Those numbers…I knew they would have an overwhelming advantage, but that’s truly impressive. 

“So you are a Magician, then?” I ask, setting aside the troubling news for later thought. 

“Yep.” 

“That means you’ve graduated from this Academy, then, right? And you’ve either mastered two elements or summoned a familiar spirit?” 

She grins. “I’ve done none of those things.”

I blink.

“Let me explain.” She says as I open my mouth. “Besides those basic requirements, ranks can also be given as rewards for exceptional merits…or as bribes, I suppose. I’m sure it’s similar to your village in that regard.”

Mari comes to mind as an example of the former.

“Which are you?” She asks. 

She grins mischievously. “The former.” 

So she’s still in this Academy, then? And she hasn’t mastered two elements, or summoned a familiar spirit, whatever that is. 

“Why haven’t you tried to graduate early if you’re skilled enough to be at the rank of Magician?” I ask curiously.

“I’ll lose access to the resources of the Academy if I do.” She explains. “I could probably use my status as a _Mage Knight_ to access them, but that would be really annoying and I don’t have any real reason to force it.” 

_Yeah, it’s as I thought. She’s a Mage Knight._

“But you’re pretty young — how did you become a Mage Knight if you’re still in the Academy?”

She thuds a fist against her chest, right next to her badge.

“I see.” 

A thought occurs to me.

“No wonder you lied before, then. You could tell that the coin was meaningless.” I mutter. 

“Huh?” She asks. “Yeah. Also, you can’t use a coin as a magical artifact, so…” 

I shake my head. “Good to know, I guess. Anyways, since I know you lied…tell me, what’s your real name?” 

“Heh.” She cracks a smile. “Well met. I am Leona of the Dawn family, originating from Aria of Arcacia. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Could I have the honor of knowing your own name?” 

I blink at the shift in her speech.

“Yuki of Alune. What’s with the...?” I trail off. 

“That’s High Arcacian.” Leona says, a small grin on her face. “Used between magi, mostly. I figured it was something you weren’t accustomed to, so I’ve been talking to you in Low Arcacian.” 

“I…see.” 

_This is more Mari’s field than mine, but picking up a dialect is easy with perfect recall._

“Do I need to learn it?”

Leona nods. “Yes, if you’re planning on infiltrating anywhere with magi in it. Thankfully, it’s not that complicated. How quick of a study are you?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay between chapters (especially comparative to Act 3)! I really want to get this right for everyone since this particular Arc has a lot of important information, so I'm trying to make it as good as possible! 
> 
> Fair warning, though, there's some terminology I might retroactively edit -- namely the name of the Resistance as well as creating another, less derogatory word for non-magicals. It's surprisingly challenging not to insult people for not being born with magic. 
> 
> Incidentally, if you want to read more Spellborne while you wait, you should check out some of the side stories I've written! There's quite a lot in this particular series...


	94. (4.1.4) Culture Shock, Part 4

#  **4.1.4 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Culture Shock, Part Four**

Leona extinguishes the light from her wand, leaving me lost in thought as my eyes readjust to the darkness once more.

After she had quickly force-fed me basic High Arcacian (which really is just a dialect of Low Arcacian), we’d talked for a while longer, as I’d dived deeper into the mystery of magic. 

And what we’d discovered…

One. Magical foci are always empowered crystals. They almost exclusively tend to be expensive jewels, such as diamond or rubies. According to Leona, this is because the crystalline structures synergize well with amplification, which is the point of the foci in the first place. She’s less sure about the expensive part, but I personally suspect this has something to do with the _spiritual_ aspect of magic, which led me to this unavoidable conclusion—

Two. _Magic and qi are the same damn thing._

It’s an obvious conclusion when you really think about it. With such similarities in their systems? The ability to cast magic and use qi in the same area without disrupting each other? They’re both forms of the same energy, just manipulated differently. 

Three. Ice is effectively a water crystal. Crystallized water.

Four. My Ice is an empowered crystal. Empowered by qi, but an empowered crystal nonetheless. And, as we’d established, magic and qi are one and the same. 

I’d brought it up before — why don’t magi use cheaper materials, like salt crystals and ice crystals, for their wands? The answer, as it turns out, is because the materials are so fragile that they fall apart the second that magic channels through them.

This is where the spiritual aspect of magic comes in. The reason I suspect they fall apart is because of their perceived _value_ — ie, as cheap materials. The user expects them to fail, so they do. However, I’m different. Ice has _meaning_ to me — it is my very qi nature as an aberration. I’m positive that my Ice can be used as a magical focus for _me_ , because it meets the rules of a potential magical focus.

Five. Etheria creates permanence. A truth I’ve known thanks to my research from years ago. 

Leona hadn’t known about the difference between her Ice and my Ice. To see if she could use it, she’d dismantled her secondary wand. I’d entrusted her with a piece of my Ice, empowered by a tiny fragment of my Etheria...

And it had _worked_ , though poorly. She’s a Fire Magus primarily, and, more importantly, doesn’t believe in my Ice the same way I do. But she perhaps believed in my confidence, because she _had_ been able to cast a simple Water spell.

_If…if I had been the one to cast…but no, I can’t, right? Without the ritual..._

_Are there other ways to gain magic?_

This has potential. This has a lot of potential. And judging from the stunned look on her face, she’d agreed. 

_A ninja that can wield magic…_

“Let’s head down.” Leona eventually says, breaking the silence. “We should meet up with the others.” 

“Almost.” I reply. “I just have one more question.”

“Huh? Sure, what is it?”

“What do you want out of all of this?” I ask bluntly. 

She tilts her head in confusion. “Out of…what? You? The war?”

“Both.” 

She smiles sadly. “Ah. Where do I begin...? Yuki, the things you’ve seen and heard of Arcacia…that only scratches the surface. The rot in this country runs so very deep….and I hate it. I hate it so much. I want to start somewhere else. Even if I’m discriminated against for being a foreigner, at least it isn’t an entire people, you know?” 

I blink. “You won’t be discriminated against for being a foreigner, especially not if you’re talented. The people of Alune, civilians especially, practically worship Chloe White.” 

“Wait, isn’t that…ah, I wonder if I’ll be able to meet her myself…” A wistful look settles onto her delicate features. It would seem that the genius sealer is well known here, too.

Wait, speaking of which—

“You guys must have some form of written magic too, right?” 

Her eyes widen. “Ah, I can’t believe I forgot! Yes, we have _runes_. They’re a bloody mess and impossible to understand, and I’ve never bothered looking into them seriously beyond knowing their general capabilities.”

Sounds like seals. They might have a different system, but if Chloe White was a master of this one, then that would explain her seal competency.

_But, she was a civilian, wasn’t she?_

I dismiss the thought, deciding to focus on the main point.

“So you want to…emigrate?” I ask.

She nods seriously. “All of this...it’s why I’ve joined the Resistance in the first place. I feel suffocated here, Yuki, for so many reasons. I want out.” 

“I can’t imagine there being any problems with it...though, obviously you would have to go through an intensive vetting procedure, background check, etc…”

“That’s fine, I expected all of that.” She says. “Then…please take me with you when you leave.” 

“So long as it doesn’t interfere with the mission unduly, I’ll have no problems with that.” 

“I assume your mission is to disrupt the invasion?”

“Yes. That, and gather information.” 

“…Destroying the communication fort won’t be enough.” She notes. “There’s a lot of those.” 

“I know.” I admit. “To stop an entire country’s invasion? We’d need to do something truly amazing, like assassinating the King.”

It goes without saying that undertaking a task like that would be even more suicidal than the already insane task we’re handling right now, and effectively impossible. We might have managed to sneak into a border civilian village, but their defenses must grow far more stringent the deeper you get. That says nothing of the actual guards that must protect their highest level of royalty. 

“There’s something you _can_ do, though.” Leona asks, emerald eyes glittering in the darkness.

“What?” I ask.

“Start a revolution.” 

_…_

“All good?” I ask Mari. 

She nods. “Just a lot of information to soak in. You?” 

My eyes harden. “Better than good. We’d better consult.” 

Mari gestures to the two men she walked out with. “Hey, you don’t mind if we talk a little bit up there privately, right?” One of the men, Albert, shrugs.

“Sure, go for it.” 

“Thanks.” 

We head up, Leona waving to me as I ascend. I lift a hand in reply, before following Mari.

Once she closes the hatch, she turns to me expectantly. 

After collecting my thoughts, I explain everything. A basic rundown of magic and magi, magical secrets, Leona’s Spirit Vision, Leona wanting to join Alune, the possibility of starting an uprising.

“Guess there’s not much point going by Alice anymore if we’re trusting them this much, huh?” Mari mumbles. 

I roll my eyes. “Did Albert and Harry mention to you some of the social problems of this land?” 

She nods seriously. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” 

I sigh, not ready for yet another information dump, but knowing that it has to happen anyways. “Hit me with it, then. The relevant parts.” 

Mari relaxes against the wall in a familiar position, beginning her short but informational lecture. 

One. As I’d known from a very old history lecture back in the Academy, Arcacia is a monarchy. There’s a full ruling system, with the King having close to absolute power. He creates royal edicts as well as delegates to a variety of governors and a Royal Council. Together, the three handle the entirety of the legislative power.

Previously, I had contemplated assassinating the man if we had needed to, but that’s no longer an option. The King is a battle-hardened _Archmage_ and decorated war hero, as it turns out, and has singlehandedly stopped dozens of assassination attempts. He also has another _Archmage_ serving as a Royal Guardian, and the two have worked together for over thirty years, nearly since _birth_ . That woman has an even _more_ decorated career. Needless to say, an assassination from people like us simply isn’t going to happen. 

Two. Arcacian suffers from substantial corruption and social rot. This had been obvious with what Leona told me, but she _had_ understated just how bad the problems were.

Legally, magi and mundanes have equal rights. In practice, this is rarely the case. Mundane police have little ability to punish a magus, and are therefore unable to police them in the slightest. Magical Forces, aka _Mage Knights_ (a tidbit I hadn’t known from Leona) trump both of them. 

However, due to the code of honor that Mage Knights have, they can usually be counted on to be relatively fair. Usually. In fact, a not insignificant portion of the Mage Knights are actually contributing to the Resistance, if not actively part of it. 

Three. Arcacia consists of hundreds of towns, villages, and cities, both magical and mundane. They’re split into three different general forms: mundane, magical, and mixed. 

Of the three, mundane villages like the ones we live in are the worst off economically, receiving very little support from the government. Although farming easily sustains them (as there’s little else they can do for food) and villagers take up a variety of industries to manage the village as necessary, there is very little room for growth. Surpluses are taxed and shunted towards the other villages. As a result, these villages are always the smallest…in regards to funding, that is. Population-wise, they’re the largest. 

Hybrid villages are the most common ones. The mundanes have the same roles as they do in the other villages, but are ruled by a higher state of government — namely, a magical council. They usually tend to act something like feudal lords, giving peasants shelter and resources in exchange for labor and product, as well as some other taxes. 

As a result, most mundanes in those types of villages are better off. Most, because part of the taxes is the better men and women getting conscripted into personal armies and as…servant staff, respectively.

Last but not least are the magical villages. They consist of full magical populations, including ‘civilian magi’, so to speak, and have vastly stronger economies, technology levels, quality of lives, resources, military power…etcetera. They are definitely the fewest in number, but the most powerful. 

Speaking of that…

Four. The class system in order: mundanes, rich mundanes, civilian magi, magi, mage knights, and royalty.

Mundanes are always on the bottom. Even the most useless magi is above the best civilian. It’s the opposite of how Alune’s system works, but it makes sense when you realize that the richest people are always magi, not mundanes.

And, of course, the magi simply tax the mundanes to the level where most can’t develop any real power. On top of that, magi have a lot of power with their magic and a monopoly on all magical goods for obvious reasons. 

This information, though, highlights a new target for us. 

There are about a hundred magical villages of varying size scattered throughout Arcacia. Each of them are economically powerful, and supported by peasant villages via taxation.

So…annihilating one of them should strike a fairly significant blow, shouldn’t it? Well, there’s no point in thinking too hard about strategy without more information, but at least another option has popped up.

Other than that, she’s mostly learned about ‘lowborn’ basic customs, traditions, and mannerisms that will help us blend in more with the general populace. Ironically, it isn’t much different than her normal behavior. 

“Alright. We have to decide now, then. Are we going to commit fully to this Resistance and trust the four of them?” I ask. 

Mari makes a face. “I don’t think we have any other choice.”

I nod. 

“Alright. Let’s go see what they have planned, then.” 

…

After reconvening with the quartet of Resistance members, we pack up and head out. Leona shrouds herself in her cloak once more to avoid drawing undue attention.

Well, the cloak draws attention by itself, but probably less than her mage outfit. Frankly, she should have changed to civilian clothing.

To my surprise, we travel not to the outskirts of the village, or even totally outside of it, but to the direct center — the town hall, a large stone building the size of a small mansion.

“Here…?” I mutter skeptically. 

“The Lord stationed here is with us.” Leona whispers to me.

“I see. Is the rest of his staff the same way?” 

“Yes.” 

Just how far does the influence of this organization spread to encompass the entire government of this village? Or, perhaps, is this _entire village—_

_Probably not, but…_

It’s most likely that this Resistance purposefully targeted this border town due to its very close proximity with Alune. No wonder they have such a large influence here. So…it wasn’t _quite_ such an insane coincidence that we ran into someone affiliated with the Resistance right away, then. But then, wouldn’t the government plant an equally close eye on the people here for that very reason? They aren’t that incompetent…right? 

We enter the office room after Leona flashes her wand. Apparently, it’s sufficient for the two non-magical guards to let us in with simply a knock and introduction, no questions asked.

The man in there is surprisingly fit, betraying my expectations of a magus politician, and surprisingly young besides that. His short black hair and grey eyes would give him a relatively unassuming appearance if not for the fact that his body has clearly seen war. A simple gold band adorns his right wrist.

_This man…reminds me a little of Katsuo._

The doors close behind us. Leona quietly draws her wand, and it takes some effort not to react to the movement as she turns towards the door, the stick flicking quickly in the shape of a small rhombus.

“Seal seams.” She mutters under her breath. I flinch as the doors seem to fuse together, the seams disappearing altogether as she sheathes her wand once more. It’s one thing to know that magic exists, and another to see it in action. To replicate that with qi…well, Fire to melt the edges of the door and Ice to freeze them in place? It wouldn’t be too good, though, nor as precise. 

“Ah, good morning, everyone. These are the two visitors you talked about, I trust?” His voice is gentle, but there’s a certain…tone of steel behind it. I can’t help but find myself slightly tense. My instincts tell me that this man has seen combat, plenty of it, despite appearing to be thirty or so. The way he speaks makes it clear that he’s more informed than he lets on, which only further arouses my distrust. Leona steps forward.

“They are, Lord Black. Please introduce yourselves.” She politely requests, gesturing to us. 

“My name is—“ I cut myself, realizing that my fake name won’t hold up, not against people who know of my origins. “Ahem. Well met, Lord Black. I am Yuki of Alune. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” 

“And I am Mari, of the same village. I, too, am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lord Black.” My teammate bows as well.

“Charmed.” The man says shortly. “You need to go down with the ninja, don’t you, Leona? In that case…have a safe trip. The rest of you, stay here. We have business to discuss.”

“Of course, my Lord.” She says demurely as she draws her wand again. I blink at the address, simultaneously focusing my aural detection to see what’s about to happen.

Pointing at the floor in front of her, she flourishes her wand in neat, rapid movements — the opposite of the diamond from before. 

“Unseal.” She intones. With a tremor, the stone simply _fades_ away from existence, to my complete shock. 

_How is that possible?! That — what was there is no longer, that shouldn’t be—_

Wait. It couldn’t be, but what if — _runes?!_

Prewritten runes, not a spell itself — no, it must be the trigger. Otherwise, couldn’t a magus just cast that kind of thing on an enemy and _obliterate them from existence?!_

Instead of stairs like I might expect, there’s just a black shaft that goes straight down. Mari and I stare dubiously into the black. Our resident magus, on the other hand, grins.

“Well, ladies first?” She asks, gesturing at Mari. “Or…perhaps the team leader would like to lead from the front?”

I blink. “How’d you—“ 

“It’s obvious from the way she defers to you.” 

Hm. That’s fair, I suppose. 

“Of course, if you’re too chicken, I suppose that I could go first.” The magus taunts. 

“What’s the trick?” I ask calmly.

“A velocity reduction, or _slow_ ward coupled with a feather-falling ward and a bounce ward for three layers of protection.” The magus informs me with a wry smile. “There’s never been any accidents.”

Mari glances at me. “Reinforcement?”

“Reinforcement.” I confirm, not wanting to trust the wards despite that. “How far is the drop?”

“Fifty meters.”

I blink in surprise. That’s quite the drop, considering that this is merely the second floor of the mansion. It must be quite deep underground.

“And we can’t see the bottom because…?” 

“Blindness ward.”

“I hope our talks includes a _comprehensive_ section on wards.” I say numbly. “They seem to have far more utility than our own seals. Are they perhaps rune-based, too?”

“Not necessarily.”

Huh. Magic is versatile. Very, very versatile.

“Anyways, you guys have to go first. I need to seal the entrance, after all.”

“How will you do that?” Mari asks curiously. 

Leona grins mischievously. “Magic.” 

To escape what I assume is her attempt at humor, I channel my qi to my feet and jump into the shaft.

Within a few seconds of falling, I’m able to see the landing — white stone of some kind. And, when I get even closer, detect the faint sense of magic. 

The reinforcement proves to be totally unnecessary as I slow down dramatically the closer I get to the ground. Falling the last meter alone takes a full second, making the drop totally safe.

Upon landing, I quickly glance up.

“Wooooohooooo! _Seal!_ Whooooooo!” Leona’s voice echoes loudly through the tunnel. 

Mari lands next to me and immediately vacates the landing zone, a small grin on her face. Leona, on the other hand, somersaults through the air, wand held loosely and cloak billowing out behind her— 

“Too slow...! _Nullify!”_

I turn my head back, alarmed at the implications of her spell. Immediately, gravity reasserts itself upon her, and she falls alarmingly fast— 

“Leona Grace Dawn! You—“ A voice shouts from behind us, causing Mari and I to whirl around, tensing. “ _Chanaase_!” 

A clear bolt of force is launched from the newcomer’s wand, one I’m not intending to let connect. With a quick application of qi, I _slash_ the oncoming magic with an Ice sword, dissipating the spell harmlessly.

It’s as I thought. Since it was a ball-type spell designed to apply force, it’s straightforward enough for me to destroy with no problems. A different type of spell might cause problems, but I don’t know enough about magic to be sure. 

“You—“ The newcomer is a tall, blonde woman dressed in some kind of fancy black robe that manages to look impressive rather than bizarre. No, perhaps too much credit is being given to her clothes — the woman herself, with her stern glare, severe features, and _incredible_ presence, is the reason why my body tenses with danger.

The man from above, the so-called Lord Black, he had been intimidating. But this woman? 

This woman makes my blood _sing._

_Wait a second._

I glance at Leona, who hits the ground hard and _bounces_ off the floor as if it was made of sponge, then back at the caster. The caster that knows Leona’s full name.

“Is this your…?” I trail off. 

“Your mother?” Mari finishes. 

“Er, y-yes.” Leona says as she bounces for the second time, staring at me in open shock. “Meet my mother, Alexandria Dawn.” 

_She’s apparently so surprised that she’s forgetting to use proper High Arcacian._

Now identified, the woman strides past the two of us and catches Leona as she comes down for her third bounce, grabbing her mid-flight and pinning her to the wall by her collar. 

“Gah! H-Hey, what’s the big—“ 

“ _So this is why you weren’t at Mage Knight training?”_

“Oh, come on! I’m the top student in the group anyways, and—“ 

_“You weren’t assigned to this mission in the first place! Roberts was!”_

“Yeah, but he wasn’t there, so I stepped in!” 

_“He wasn’t there because you tricked him into meeting you behind the bathrooms, stunned him, and tied him up in the stalls!”_

I shoot the struggling mage a mildly impressed look. Talk about opportunism. She smirks and mutters— 

“Clearly he…needs more time to train, then.” 

Mari snorts despite herself. 

“You—“ At a loss, Ms. Dawn raises her wand, and I step in. Silently, I stride forward, clamping my hand around her wand wrist as I press down hard on a certain spot, forcing her to involuntary drop her wand. With my free hand, I catch it and— 

Her hand, the one previously pinning Leona to the wall, lashes out and grabs _my_ wrist, forcing me into a sort of awkward hold as she forces the wand I’ve caught to point at me. My calm gaze meets her furious ones, green fire staring into blue ice. 

“And _what_ do you think you’re doing?” She whispers, incensed. 

“Mother or not, I won’t allow you to cast any kind of curse on Leona.” I say quietly even as I prepare for action.

“Well, uh, Leona’s safe now, so you guys can…relax…?” The magus in question asks hesitantly, having darted next to Mari during the tense standoff. 

Despite that, though, the woman doesn’t let go, and neither do I. My qi begins humming in my veins, ready to use as necessary— 

With a contemptuous sneer, the older blonde lets go, yanking her arm out of my grip. Cautiously, I throw her wand back to her, prepared for anything. 

“Fine. Let us be off. And _you,_ daughter, can return to the manor for study — as you will _not_ be participating in any of the upcoming events, your presence here with these…ninja are unnecessary.” 

“Mother—“ 

“This is _not_ up for debate, Leona.” 

“I promised him I would duel him, Mother!” 

“You _what!?_ Of all the _idiotic—_ “ 

Well, as my memory serves, she made no such promise. We had an agreement, sure, but a promise is rather too intense of a word. My respect for Leona goes up another notch.

“It wasn’t to the death, was it?!” 

“ _No!_ I’m not an idiot!” 

“You could have fooled me.” Lady Dawn spins to face me. “You. Why on earth did _you_ agree to duel my naive, inexperienced daughter?” 

I dip slightly into the Veil to maintain my cool — the woman is, frankly, just that intimidating. She reminds me of Hikaru, when I’ve done something particularly stupid. 

“Because she requested it, and because I wanted practical combat experience against a magus.” I reply. Her eyes flash.

“Well. In that case…Leona, if you don’t win this duel, you will not be interacting further with these ninja and you will remove yourself from this farce of a war.” 

After dropping that bomb on us, she spins away. “Come. Let’s get this over with now, then.” 

  
  



	95. (4.1.5) Culture Shock, Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a fight to break up the plot and exposition!

#  **4.1.5 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Culture Shock, Part Five**

_Well. This is a problem._

If I win…I lose Leona as a guide. I like the mischievous magus. She intrigues me, and despite annoying me earlier, is also pleasant to be around. Besides that, it’s obvious that she’s my best option for learning about magic. Magic seems to have obvious utility in a way qi doesn’t, and it’s something I desperately want to learn about, even if I might not be able to use it. Having a teacher that I both like and think I can trust is going to be critical.

On the other hand, if I lose…If Leona wants to leave Arcacia and depart with us, then I must earn this woman’s respect. Otherwise, she will chase her daughter to the ends of the world. So if I lose, it would have to be a good enough showing to impress her. 

_I can’t just throw the fight, then._

“You’re thinking too hard about this.” Leona says seriously as her mother opens a door with a yellow sun icon. “Just fight to the best of your ability. I’m going to be doing the same, after all.” 

_Is it really that easy?_

The interior of the base is much the same as you might expect of the outside, in terms of straight decorative sense and style, although instead of being lit with oil lamps and candles, the base features these strange glowing crystals. The main difference, though, is that all of the walls seem to contain iron. 

Certainly, there’s a lot to disguise it — the floor, for example, is stone brick. But Mari, with her own sensory abilities, is able to detect the distinct presence of the metal.

According to Leona, the metal — specifically runewoven iron — inhibits magic. So creating a base with a shell of metal renders it both strongly defended from outside magical attack and, more importantly, suppresses internal magic radiation, so long as all entrances are sealed.

 _Clever_. 

There is also a fairly expansive training ground, and other important facilities, such as a hospital, kitchen, and even a magical farm. You could quite literally live here for months or years without issue. The training room is surprisingly large, similar in size to one of the arenas back in Alune. Within, several dozen men and women hastily clear the area, carrying weapons, armor, and targets away. The ground is packed with what appears to be grass and earth, but is otherwise flat.

“How good are the wards protecting the training ground?” I ask.

“They’re top-class. You won’t need to worry about holding back.” She says confidently. “Even my mother can almost go wild in there.”

“And how strong’s your mother?” I ask. Leona grins. 

“Very.”

“I see.”

There’s a balcony overlooking the area as well, and as I watch, more and more people spill out onto it, looking down at us. 

“Why are they there?” I ask, gesturing upwards. 

She shrugs. “Curiosity, I imagine. It’s not every day you get to see a ninja fight…er, when they’re not trying to kill you. And I…have a bit of a reputation myself.” 

“Is that so?” I muse. “Well, I want them out. I don’t want my abilities being public knowledge.” 

She nods, steps not faltering as she closes her eyes. 

“Done.” She murmurs, as we step to the center of the arena. Soon enough, people begin trickling out moments later. 

I raise an eyebrow. 

_Telepathy, I assume?_

“Alright, Leona.” I glance around. “Seems that we’ll be fighting soon.”

She nods, nothing but confidence on her face. “Seems so.” 

“Good luck.” I mutter. “I won’t let you win, but I wouldn’t mind if you stayed around.” 

The magus smiles slightly, stepping back. “Then, mister ninja, let’s make things interesting.” 

“How so?” 

A small smile flits across her face. “Knight techniques only. Er, for you, those would be…CQC and ECQC, I believe. Right?”

“Assuming you mean internal arts, and arts related specifically to physical combat? Yes, that’s correct.” 

She nods in confirmation. “Yep, that and thrown weapons and the like. Basically, I’m not going to be shooting fireballs and stuff at you, and you’re not going to be making giant blasts of wind. Unless you can do that with nothing more than the force of your blade.”

_Interesting. She, a magus, wants to take me, a ninja, in mostly close-range combat. Hm. Now that’s fascinating._

“I accept your condition.” I say simply. If she wants to handicap herself, then I’m fine with that. And if it isn’t a handicap? Well, it’s been a while since I’ve been properly pushed in a way that hasn’t been simply Mari rolling over me. I’m curious. 

Alexandria, still standing near us, shakes her head. 

“Are you two prepared? I shall have you swear your vows, then activate the wards.”

“Swear my vows?” I ask. 

The blonde woman sighs, drawing her wand. “Swearing to the conditions of the duel. Words are empty, but vows are not. Do you accept?”

_If Leona does not win, she can’t interact with Mari or I any longer._

“Fine.” I say simply. 

“I as well.” Leona grins, drawing her wand as well. “On my magic, I swear that I shall abide by the conditions of this duel. Should I fail to defeat Yuki of Alune in this duel, I will make no attempt to contact or interact with him, nor his partner, Mari of Alune. Lightbringer, please bind this vow to me.” 

The gem of her wand glows red. 

“On my magic, I swear that I shall abide by the conditions of this duel, as stated by Leona Dawn of Arcacia.” I hesitate for a moment. “Lightbringer, please bind this vow to me.”

Alexandria’s wand glows blue.

_I see. She’s acting as a proxy for me, since I do not yet have magic of my own._

Then, simultaneously, both wands glow gold.

“The vow has been accepted.” The blonde woman says. “The winner will be decided by incapacitation or death. _There will be no surrender._ Lightbringer, witness this vow.” 

I stiffen at that rule. 

_She really wants to see a true fight, huh?_

It’s too late to interject, though — the glow turns white, then fades entirely. 

Alexandria’s wand points up. “ _Keasaka!”_

The walls glow with a ethereal golden light, highlighting the wards that we’ll be fighting within. They cover nearly the entire arena, although they remain outside of the balcony so that others can spectate. Looking down, I realize that they even stretch below us, though based on how faint the glow is, they must be a good ways down.

_Wait, I can’t possibly be seeing the light from them. That’s deep under all this dirt and what I assume must be stone underneath. So...her spell highlights the wards to my eyes, instead of making them glow?_

“Move to opposite sides of the arena.” She directs. 

Nodding to Leona quickly, I pivot and move to where Mari leans against the far wall, just outside the range of the wards

“Good luck.” The Storm Mistress murmurs. “I’ll be watching from above.” 

I nod. She looks about as conflicted as I feel inside. Flashing me a quick, reassuring grin, she vaults upwards, clearing the ten meters to the balcony without any trouble. Alexandria does the same — and, more interestingly, does it _without her wand or any apparent incantation._

And then it’s just the two of us. 

“The duel will begin in thirty seconds.” Leona’s mother calls out, voice unnaturally loud. There must be some kind of sound amplification spell in place. With a flash, a floating set of numbers appears midair in the center of the arena, slowly ticking away.

_What a strange bit of magic._

“Hey, Yuki!” Leona calls out, yelling to cover the distance. She has her own sound-amplifying charm, too. 

“What?!” I yell in return, feeling a little foolish.

“Since neither of us will be using caster-type techniques, want to move closer?! We’re just wasting time if we start here!” 

Wordlessly, I begin moving up, trusting her to understand. Sure enough, she skips forward too, looking pleased. Eventually, we stop at about five meters apart from each other — a distance I could cover in the blink of an eye, even from a standing position. 

“You’re probably confused about why I’ve set the duel up to be this way, aren’t you?” She asks, a disarming smile on her face. 

“A bit.” I agree. 

“Heehee. You know, when a lot of people see me, they assume that I’m a Caster.” Leona says idly as the countdown ticks down. “But I bet you’ve noticed, haven’t you?”

I have. The girl’s level of fitness is well beyond other magi, even more so than the other Mage Knights I’ve seen.

“Mage _Knight_ , huh?” 

She grins. “I knew you’d be fun.” 

In response to her words, I draw both of my swords. I’d recovered them after defeating Anna and Senia — it hadn’t been too hard, not with as touched with my qi as these blades are. The sight of them makes her grin grow wider.

“I think you understand a little bit of what it means to face a mage. I’ll show you what it means to face a _knight_.” 

_Three seconds left._

I smile thinly. “Let’s see it, then.”

Deliberately, Leona puts away her wand. A red-orange glow bursts to life around her arms, coalescing into something solid in her hands. I raise an eyebrow, interested.

The timer hits zero. 

Wordlessly, she immediately lunges towards me, the glow becoming two flaming swords in her hands. Eyes wide, I parry with my own, noting that she’s moving far faster than she should be— 

In another instant, she’s leaping back a dozen meters, the two blades flying out of her hands towards me. I parry them to either side, then yelp and duck as a massive war axe comes whirling over me, too. 

“What the fu—“

Wait, those aren’t real flaming weapons. They’re…I’m not sure what to call it. It’s as if they’re composed of…hard light, or something else, but flames flicker along the edges of them. They’re clearly solid and quite durable, and every swing carries the added risk of being burnt as sparks and embers fly off of them.

Well, that’s not so much of a threat to me. I bring my Ice Nature to the surface, then cross my blades and flood my body and blades with qi as a massive light shuriken slams into my guard. 

She darts in underneath her projectile’s wake, slashing up with a _mace_ of all things that actually manages to disrupt my stance enough for her follow-up spinning strike to send me sliding back, simultaneously disarming me of one of my swords. 

Taking her seriously now, I stab my blade into the ground, attempting to slow myself. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t let me, a massive hammer aiming to crush through my defense. 

_It might even work, despite how reinforced I am. The mass difference…_

I flip upwards in a smooth motion, riding the momentum, and hurl my blade at her as I do so. However, her hammer has already morphed into a shield, letting her block the sword with ease before she kicks it across the ground.

Her light turns into a lasso that she sends whipping out towards me, but she couldn’t have accounted for the fact that I can move, even suspended mid-air. A simple application of Gale Stance (but with raw qi rather than Wind) sends me out of her reach, and another one lets me spin enough to get some good momentum going, rapidly hurling a trio of icicles at her. 

She bats them upwards with a skillful movement, but the distractions lets me use another ripple of qi to force myself downwards, landing safely on the ground. 

_She’s…pretty damn good—_

I’m forced to use my Ice Control to dissolve my own Ice blades into harmless snow as she manages to snap them back at me with her whip. 

“Alright.” I say. “I’ll admit I underestimated you a bit.” 

She grins slyly at me. “Yeah, you did. But I’ll say, I underestimated you, too. I didn’t think anyone my age could keep up with me.” She puts a hand on her hip. “You know what? Wanna make a little alteration to this duel?” 

“Color me interested.” I reply, intrigued. “What did you have in mind?”

“No restrictions.” She replies, smirking gleefully. “No duel restrictions. I really want to see how far you can push me.” 

“Hm…confident, are you?” I ask, a small, competitive smile on my own face. “You’re going to be the one trying to push _me!”_

 _I understand now. Right at this moment, I understand. The thrill of a battle like this. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to really let loose without the possibility of death hanging over me. No, I’ve_ never _had the chance to go all-out like this!_

“I accept your challenge! From now on, no more holding back!” She shouts, eyes gleaming with the thrill of competition as magic surges through us, modifying the vow we’ve sworn— 

She incants first as I start gathering my qi.

“ _Firelight Circle!”_

_Wait. That’s an incantation I understand. No, even before, she casted in an understandable language, that’s right. ‘Seal’, ‘Unseal’, ‘Illuminate’. Does that mean—_

A blindingly bright ring erupts from her wand, rapidly growing as it approaches at high speed and distorting upon hitting the ground. 

_Those tricks can’t work on me!_

I reinforce my eyes very subtly, taking advantage of my detailed grasp of anatomy to filter out the excess light. It’s easy to catch her kiting around, then, charging what appears to be a massive fireball. 

Slipping through the ring, I intentionally give her a perfect target to fire her shot at, and the blast roars towards me. There’s no real room to dodge, but that’s not a problem—

With a sharp cracking sound, the ground snap-freezes around me as I dive into my Veil, and punch the fireball with all my power. The flames wash harmlessly over me, the magic dissipating harmlessly.

_“Grand Firelight Charge Beam!”_

_She expected me to use my Ice to ignore the fireball, and used the time to bring to bear more of her magic. But I expected her to do that!_

I jump with a burst of qi so powerful that the ground shatters underneath me, easily clearing the honest-to-gods _laser_ that’s larger than Leona is. It grinds through the ground without pause and slams into the wards on the far side, eliciting a screeching sound as it dies off.

The second the laser fizzles out, I flip in the air and use a pulse of qi to bring me crashing into the ground. 

_Thanks for the technique, Mari!_

The earth splits in her direction, throwing dirt into the air. Leona dodges, wide-eyed and aborting her cast as she does so. 

Grinning, I launch a qi string at one of the larger rocks from the debris I’ve thrown up, hooking it with ease, then swing it up and around at Leona, who doesn’t realize what I’m doing until too late. The rock crashes into her head, shattering on impact, and sends her crashing into the ground, sliding through the dirt. 

I cringe. That…might’ve killed her actually. 

_Ack. Maybe I shouldn’t have...?_

“Huh.” Leona mutters, getting to her feet slowly. “That almost hurt.” 

I blink, eyes wide. “You…you got up from that? I was worried that had _killed_ you!” 

The magus grins, rubbing the spot I hit her. “Yeah…about that…”

_She isn’t even bleeding. What the hell? Enhanced reinforcement or not, if I had taken a hit like that, I definitely would have been down for the count. That was…that was like taking a cannon shot to the head. You don’t get up from that._

“I’m really good at basic reinforcement.” An amused smile makes its way across her face.

I narrow my eyes, throwing my arms out. Two more qi strings lash out, grabbing onto the hilt of my swords and yanking them back to me.

“Well, let’s see how you like being treated so roughly.” She gestures in a circle with her wand. “ _Telekinesis Control Field!”_

_…What?_

A circle five meters in diameter centered around her glows blue, arcane symbols rapidly filling the space. 

“…What the hell is that?” I ask. 

“One of my trump cards.” She says cheerfully, as a pair of rocks rip themselves out of the ground and begin rapidly spinning mid-air. “How fast can you dodge? Fire!” 

As if fired from a cannon, the rocks blast themselves at me, still spinning dangerously. Realizing that there’s absolutely no way I could block these safely, I use my Wind element and reinforcement to speed myself up, narrowly avoiding the dangerous projectiles.

But by then, she’s pulled up another ten, and they rapidly launch themselves at me too, one at a time as if from a gun.

I start strafing backwards, giving myself a little bit more time to react. She responds by pulling out larger projectiles, apparently able to launch those at the same pace. A near miss draws blood from my side, but eventually the stream of rocks tapers off — it looks like she’s decided to change strategy, abandoning her control field in order to claim the center of the arena. 

Narrowing my eyes, I quickly unseal my bow and launch an explosive arrow at her. She doesn’t even stop running, but for some reason the arrow detonates before it gets even close, obscuring my vision. 

_She wants the middle of the arena? I’ll have to stop that...but how? If she beats me at close range, and nullifies my projectiles..._

_Ah!_

I race towards the center, towards her, flipping to Wind and drawing power into my blade as I do. Grinning, she flicks her wand, launching a dozen magical bolts at me that I weave around. 

Then a wave of Earth ripples from the ground, threatening to crack both my legs — and more importantly, forces me to jump into the air, where she has a crushing bolt of force waiting for me. 

_Too slow, Leona! You don’t realize that for a Wind User like me, the air is just as much ground for me as the earth you’re manipulating!_

_“Stormbreaker!”_

A torrent of Wind tears through the arena, stripping the ground of its dirt and crashing it into the far ward barrier. The barriers screech ominously, clearly strained by the raw power smashing into it. 

I keep the flow up for a few seconds before I let it peter out. The bottom layer of the wards has been exposed, crackling with magical energy. Meanwhile, on the far end, all of the dirt and shattered earth from the center has been piled up against the far side, pushed up against the wards, leaving a sort of donut-shaped terrain left. Dirt and rock start sliding down, filling the hole left behind. 

Minutely, I relax, letting myself fall back to the ground on my side. That technique always takes a lot out of me, and—

A sound like a gunshot rings out, blood splattering across the earth behind me. Unexpectedly, I fall to the ground, my left leg no longer supporting me.

_What the…what the hell?_

A quick probe of qi tells me everything I need to know. Somehow, inexplicably, a hole has been torn through my left leg. 

_There’s traces of…dirt? Then—_

Forcing qi to my leg, forcing myself to move, I’m able to dodge the second stone projectile that moves faster than anything I’ve ever seen, short of Mari herself—

It’s only my superior senses that save me. Instinctively reacting to an unfamiliar presence, I pivot with both swords flashing. It’s just enough to block Leona’s overhead strike with more of her hard light weapons, except this time there’s so much force behind the hit that both my legs crack under the strain, and I sink into the unsteady dirt.

Gritting my teeth, I sink into the Veil to suppress my rising scream. Both my hands are trapped blocking, but I don’t need those to channel my Ice. 

A lance of Ice slams right into Leona’s chest, sending her flying away from me. The shock on her face is probably attributable to the fact that the weapon originated from my own chest.

It doesn’t seem to meaningfully hurt her, though — she kicks off of me and lands on her feet gingerly rubbing her breastbone.

“Was that...teleportation?”

She grins. “So you noticed. Yep. I can teleport. It’s not something most people pick up because it’s really hard to do, but I’m not most people.”

I narrow my eyes. That wasn’t a trump card I learned about from the magi. Is she lying? Or is it as rare as she claims? As I open my mouth to retort, she seems to suddenly dissolve, vanishing into flurries of light. I flinch, anticipating another teleport, my senses primed—

Nothing. Nothing at all.

_What...what is this?_

I frown. Well, if that’s the way she wants to play it, then—

_“Frozen Garden!”_

The ground under me frosts over, the Ice spreading rapidly. It moves underground, even growing to bridge the gap over the exposed center of the arena.

 _“Mitakeatsukinaa!”_ Her voice bellows out. An immense wave of molten rock erupts from the artificial mountain of dirt, hissing and bubbling as it scrapes the ward ceiling. 

That...doesn’t look like a Fire technique I can block head-on. The problem is, where do I go? 

_No choice._

Taking the few seconds I need to shift to Wind, I leap up and take to the skies as the wave crests, coming down. A stray spray of lava suddenly launches itself at me. Narrowing my eyes, I start dodging with a burst of Wind when I feel a materialization of power behind me.

“Well played.” I mutter, just as Leona smacks me down into the lava from behind.

Naturally, I bring my Ice to the surface. Although I don’t think it will stop it, it could prevent a fatal—

I hit the surface, and go straight through. In fact, underneath the initial layer of what seems to be nothing more than light, there’s nothing at all, just the gap covered by my Ice.

“Wha—“

“Gotcha! _Circle Spark Ward!”_ Leona says gleefully, touching down on my Ice. She looks tired and more than a little beat-up, but triumph still dances in her eyes. A hollow, spherical barrier forms around me, barely bigger than me. Unable to stop myself in time, I hit the translucent golden barrier.

“H-Huh? You’re supposed to be getting shocked right now!”

I smirk, even as my flesh begins to blister. “O-Oh, I am. It’s just...I’m far more used to this than you can imagine. Oh, and, Leona?”

“What?”

“ _Collapse_.”

The Ice Leona’s standing on shatters, sending her scrabbling to cast a spell to keep her balance. Her focus, completely disrupted, leaves the electrical barrier to dissipate, and I land on a quickly-formed chunk of Ice that I immediately kick at her, a new one forming under my feet.

She manages to catch herself mid-air with some kind of wordless spell, but I disrupt it when the projectile I’ve launched knocks her right in the face, bloodying her nose. 

“Ow!”

My flesh knits itself together as I force myself to move on still-healing legs, running across the air with Ice platforms. Leona forms her hard light weapon to block my all-out charge, blades crashing against one another as I force her to solid ground. 

“You can’t teleport.” I say with certainty. “It’s just an image, or a clone of some sort — a short-lived one, at that. But you’ve been using it to hide the fact that you took more damage from _Stormbreaker_ than you’ve shown. And that’s why—“ Our blades scrape against each other, Arcacian steel against my Ice, “That’s why you’ve changed your style from controlled berserker to skirmisher.” I grin. “It’s why you haven’t overpowered me yet!” 

I’m stronger than Leona naturally, but her potent reinforcement actually gives her an advantage in physical strength on me. If I’d tried this stupid tactic earlier, she would have easily gone right through me. But right now? Her arms tremble as she struggles to hold my blade back, but her eyes tell a different story. Anger at my words.

_Good._

“I’ll show you weak.” Leona glares, before magic visibly surges up her arms and into her blade. Suddenly, the pressure on me abruptly doubles.

Smirking for a moment, I shift and let her blade slip past me. With the force she’s using, it crashes hard into the ground. Stomping on it hard with one reinforced foot, I use the leverage and dart in, hand outstretched— 

An Ice dagger sinks into her stomach, slicing through her resistances like melted butter — then the clone abruptly liquifies, trapping my hand in place.

_Is this…hot candle wax?_

“I’ve been manipulating people with my words and actions in battle for the longest time. You’re not the first to try doing the same to me, and you’re not the last, but you’ll go the same way as the rest.” Leona’s voice rings out from above me. I glance up to see her coming down.

“Another clone?” I ask, annoyed. She smiles enigmatically.

“Yes. As you’ve noticed, that wax inhibits external expression of energy. Neat, right? Although you’re obviously trying to utilize _internal_ expression, so… _sleep!”_

I grit my teeth as her spell slams into me, apparently trying to force me to unconsciousness. I’m not sure what it is — a miscalculation on her part? My Ice nature? — but either way, I’m able to resist the spell, if just barely.

Diving deep into the Veil, I’m able to withstand the sudden, overwhelming desire to sleep, punching through the wax with brute force a moment later. The burns and bruising that causes me goes unnoticed as I realize the clone seems to have vanished. 

_Now…where’d you really go, Leona?_

Concentrating, I release a pulse of sensory qi, trying to pinpoint her.

_There._

Spinning, I launch myself up, out of the pit, and back onto flat ground. The illusory lava wave has long since vanished, leaving behind the cracked dirt and…

Leona’s slumped against an earth pillar, clearly barely conscious. She looks utterly exhausted, and moreover, rather hurt, blood soaking her stomach. It would appear that my _Stormbreaker_ did some damage to her after all. 

“Looks like you couldn’t keep up.” I observe quietly, wary for any tricks as I approach. 

She manages to tilt her head up to track me. “I…suppose not. You…you resisted that sleep spell…?”

I shrug.

“Seems that way.” 

“…Aw. That’s not fair.” 

I stare blankly at her. “You’ve been abusing my lack of knowledge about magic to make me think you can do anything.”

A small grin comes to her face. “I can do anything…except teleport. That’d be cool.” Her eyes flutter closed for a moment.

“...Unless?” 

Suddenly, a burst of power flares up behind me as the Leona in front of me begins dissolving into light. I whirl around, eyes wide—

A spell rams into me from behind, and this time I’m not able to resist the call of unconsciousness.


	96. (4.1.6) Culture Shock, Closing

#  **4.1.6 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Culture Shock, Closing (Leona’s POV)**

“…Hah…” 

Fire rumbles through my veins, my whole body feeling a little bit fractured. Magical overexertion, for sure. 

But. But…

_ It was totally worth it.  _

I stare down at Yuki’s sleeping body. It hurts to be standing right now, but I want to enjoy this moment! 

It took everything I had. Projections. Telekinesis sorcery. Every drop of my magical ability and ingenuity. Spellcrafting. Illusion magic. And, surprisingly, my honed acting and stealth skills.

_ Who would’ve thought being a prankster would be so applicable to the battlefield? _

“Heh.” 

_ Lightbringer, I’m so exhausted.  _

“Heehee…” I grin, as the wards deactivate and my mother lands next to me. “Have I…made you proud, Mother…?” 

As I slip into blissful unconsciousness, I’m only just barely able to catch her words—

“You always have, daughter.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, 4.1 is done. More importantly, time for a flood of updates to the side stories!
> 
> ...Though the REAL gate will be 4.3. I'm looking forward to it, and I hope you are too!


	97. (4.2.1) False Dichotomy, Part 1

#  **4.2.1 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **False Dichotomy, Part One**

Consciousness returns slowly, hazily, as I open my eyes. 

_Hm…so I’ve been knocked unconscious. What happened?_

Memories flash through my head. 

_Huh. So she beat me, then?_

_…Good._

Fighting Leona was such an interesting experience. Even in a duel, she fought dirty. I hadn’t expected to fight any magus that could fight with that mindset. Hell, she fought more like a ninja than I did!

_That’s your specialty, huh?_

I think back to her abilities. A telekinetic control field. Clones and illusion spells. Close-range expertise. An incredible ability to bait and deceive. An amazing capability for stealth.

_Territory control. Leona’s all about territory control._

It’s subtle, and different from the way I do it. Instead of controlling the territory, she controls the person, manipulating them into positions under her power. Everything she did in the second half of the fight fell under that category.

_Perhaps I really have been underestimating magi. I wonder if there’s more of you like that…?_

“Are you going to say hello to me any time soon, captain?” Mari asks, glowering at me. I’m on some kind of cot in a small, enclosed room, staring at a stone ceiling. Behind it, I know, lies several inches of unyielding metal. 

“Sorry.” I say, my throat parched. “I was thinking. Incidentally, you had a birds-eye view, didn’t you? Could you tell me what was going on in that fight that I couldn’t see?” 

“Hello, Mari.” The Storm User mutters rebelliously under her breath. “I’m so glad you waited for me. It’s nice to see you too—”

My hand pats her head, once. “Thanks, Mari.”

She pouts playfully, smiling. “Well, there wasn’t much. Um…the first half was pretty straightforward. Once you slammed her into the wall with that Wind technique of yours, she stayed there for most of the fight, using those weird clones of hers to do the fighting. Then she moved after she knocked you into the fake lava to where you found her, and she hit you from behind when you randomly turned around.”

“I was reacting to magic use behind me.” I mutter indignantly.

She grins slightly. “Oh, if that’s what it was.”

I shake my head. “Leona can do wandless, silent casting. She casted some kind of spell behind me to make me think that she had made a clone there.”

“Huh?” Mari wonders. “But there was nothing at all there.”

I close my eyes, thinking. The answer, when I think about it, feels obvious in hindsight. 

“Telekinesis. She’s capable of Telekinesis Sorcery.” 

“That’s…magic without an incantation or wand, right?”

“Mm.” 

_It fits. That would neatly answer a few of the strangest questions I had during our fight. How is she capable of such advanced reinforcement? How did she destroy that one arrow I sent at her? How did she survive the rock I slammed into the side of her skull? If there was a force that pushed_ **_outward_ ** _, especially one she controlled…detonating that arrow, crushing the rock just before it connected, and even using it to force her body to move faster, something akin to my own Gale Stance…_

“That’s quite the power for someone who looks so young to wield…” Mari says thoughtfully. I blink. 

“She seems to be about the same age as me.” I point out. “Maybe a little bit older.” 

“You’re different.” Mari dismisses easily. “Hm. Perhaps it’s better to say…we’re different, as ninja.”

“Is that so?” I muse rhetorically. “I wonder…”

_That was not a battle between a ninja and a magus. That was pure, dirty exploitation of the battlefield and of mental state. I fought too linearly and paid the price for it._

“I have a lot of questions to ask her, though.” Wincing, I sit up. I’m not particularly injured, although I’m slightly stiff. It doesn’t seem that I’ve been unconscious for more than a few hours. 

_So it should be…close to dinner? Nearly evening. That’s plenty of time to get more information, both about magic, the upcoming war, and this Resistance. We need to start planning out our next steps._

“Hm, you really do seem okay after all.” Mari murmurs. “Just as she said.”

“She?” I ask.

“I talked to Leona’s mom. She said that the spell Leona casted at you was a high _-_ level sleep spell. It was supposed to put you out for a day, but she didn’t think you’d be unconscious for more than a few hours.”

“Hm.”

“Ah, about that, captain. You should be wary of her.” 

I raise an eyebrow. “Why is that?”

“She’s…” The Storm Mistress hums. “She’s _really_ strong, Yuki.” 

“I assume she did something to make you think that?”

She nods. “Remember how much you two destroyed the arena?”

_Fissures in the ground. A quarter of the arena, displaced against the far wall. A chasm ripped down to the wards. A massive crater gouged out. Molten dirt from her laser._

“Well, she repaired all of it with one spell in three seconds.”

_Wha—_

“Silently, without looking at the arena.” 

I realize belatedly that my mouth is hanging open and close it. 

“All she did was jab her wand at the ground as she walked out. It was like…reality bent to her will.” 

“Spellweaver-level?” I mutter under my breath. “I wonder…” I shake my head. “Anyways, we’ve spent far too much time here.” Slipping out of the bed, I stand on shaky legs. “Give me a moment to acclimate, then we’re going to find Leona.”

Unbidden, an arm supports me. Mari.

“Geez, captain.” She sighs. “You can take a few moments to warm up, you know?”

I grunt. “The magic’s made me unusually stiff. That must have been one hell of a sleep spell.” 

Mari shrugs. “You’d have to tell me. I’ll admit, I’m kind of curious about fighting her, too.”

I shake my head as we start making our way out. Glancing around, though, I realize that the base is larger than I’d thought. “Perhaps it will be more efficient if we split up?”

Mari agrees. “I’ll go left?”

“Sure thing…Alice.”

The Storm Mistress snorts. “See you in an hour.”

_Right. We won’t get lost thanks to our abilities to sense each other easily._

With that, I turn right and begin going through the hallways, knocking and pushing open doors. The majority of them are empty — single rooms just like the one I came out of. Some of them are occupied by sleeping Resistance members, others by awake ones. Eventually, someone’s able to point me to the hospital wing or one of the training rooms as her most likely position, and with no other leads, I decide to check them out.

“Aha.” 

I stop outside the door, a window of glass allowing me to peer in. Leona stands in the middle of a moderately-sized stone room, hand resting against the hilt of her mage-knight blade. 

_She never used that in our fight, did she?_

Explosively, she draws her sword, a glimmering, balanced piece similar in form and design to the swords I’ve liberated from the fallen mage-knights. It slices through the air, wielded with unnatural precision and speed, cutting through an imaginary opponent in a surprisingly graceful dance. Yet, there’s very little motion wasted at all, one slash putting her in a position for a half-dozen other options.

As much time as I’ve put into the blade, I’ve never had a real teacher. My style was formed out of practice, experimentation, and experience. For all that, though, I’ve never had the chance to refine my style. Katsuo trained me to dual-wield, but even that is mostly as a tool to use _Gale Stance_ more effectively. It’s clear that Leona suffers no such restrictions, wielding the blade like an extension of her body. 

Suddenly, her wand appears in her hand, and hurls a bright red bolt at the far wall. It heralds the beginning of a trio of spells being weaved into her intricate dance, a lethal whirl of sword and magic erupting from her.

Another moment, and the sword is sheathed in a single fluid motion, leading her to focus fully on her spellcasting. A dozen silent spells splash across the wall in the space of a few seconds, a veritable rainbow erupting from her wand and even from her empty off-hand. 

The wand spins in her hand before she jabs it at the wall.

_“Firelight Beam!”_

A fiery laser blasts off her wand and gouges into the stone wall, the wards underneath humming a bright red before the beam abates. 

I knock once, mildly amused as she spins around, eyes wide, then open the door once her eyes register recognition. “Are you sure you weren’t holding back? You didn’t cast quite like that in our duel.”

She shakes her head. “No. The spells I used there wouldn’t work on ninja, except for the last one.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, closing the door behind me. 

“Ninja have more innate magic resistance than typical magi as a rule of thumb. Here, look.” Her wand appears in her hand, whirling before she locks it on my foot. “ _Ignite!”_

My foot slightly warms, and that’s all.

“It’s your chakra aura.” She explains. “If we don’t really put our all into it, basic spells are reduced in effect. We’d have to use more indirect methods, or cast something stronger. Those spells I threw out were skirmishing spells which are meant for — uh, would you like to sit down?”

I glance around. “There isn’t really anywhere—“ 

“ _Chairs.”_

I stare blankly at the simple wooden chairs in front of me. “Did you just—”

“Hehe. Yes. Yes I did.” She grins at me. “Care to sit?”

“Are these temporary?” I ask, gingerly pressing down on the construct. 

“Of course.” Leona nods. “Permanent conjuration is almost impossible.”

It seems able to hold my weight, so I sit. She spins her chair around and sits backwards on it, rocking slightly. 

“Neat.” 

“So I understand you have a few questions for me?” She asks. 

I blink. “Did Mari find you first?”

“Nah. It’s just obvious.” She smiles. “So? Ask away.”

“First of all…” I say dryly. “Congratulations. Looks like you’ll be hanging with us for a while.”

“Yeah.” Her smile grows. “My mother wasn’t exactly happy about it, but she couldn’t deny it. I can do basically whatever I want, now.”

“Cool.” I reply. “Good to have you on board, Leona. I’m sure you’ll bring a lot to the team. Anyways, my question… _telekinesis sorcery?_ ” 

Her eyes widen, briefly surprised, then her lips curl into a satisfied smirk. 

“Wow. You picked up on that fast.” 

“That’s the secret behind your extreme reinforcement too, isn’t it?” I ask. 

She nods proudly. “Yep. But I am very skilled at normal reinforcement, too.”

“Good enough to maintain that sorcery and maintain reinforcement at the same time? Two very different enchantments, aren’t they? You wrap that telekinesis control field around your body, don’t you?”

She stares. “You’re just full of surprises. Yep, that’s how my empowered reinforcement works. And I’m not that good.” She smiles proudly. “I’m better. I can cast while maintaining both of those.”

I nod, understanding. “So three, then. Three simultaneous spells. How is that possible? I most certainly can not utilize three of my techniques at once.”

She smiles, a peculiar light coming to her eyes. 

“I eat, breathe, and sleep magic. It is the most important thing in my life, and I treat it with the respect it deserves. A lot of practice, Yuki. A _lot_.”

Leona reminds me of Sayaka in the sense that I can easily approach her on the level of an equal. A rival, so to speak, except for that rather than any animosity existing between us — even manufactured animosity — we both, if I understand correctly, share a love for _learning_. She’s like Sayaka, but different in many ways. Prideful, for one, more than even Mari. I can see it in her eyes, in her mindset. I don’t blame her for that, though. Like I told her before — she isn’t an ordinary magus. She’s an extraordinary one, someone who—

_—John’s account flashes through my head, about the mages that wouldn’t give him the light of day—_

—treats her power with the respect it deserves. As a tool, but also as a weapon to be wielded properly, and as something to want to understand. Besides that, she’s also disarmingly cheerful. She smiles more than anyone else I know. And she’s most certainly earned my respect. 

“Is there anything special about the sword?” I ask, pointing to it.

“Well, it is a status symbol.” She smiles. “The blade of a mage-knight, or simply just a ‘mage-blade’. It’s strong, and really good at channeling magic, but all the work still comes from the user.” 

“I see. Ah, also, I noticed you changed languages halfway through the duel. It went from something understandable to something that wasn’t.”

She grins slightly. “Yes. I didn’t like that you were anticipating my spells, so I changed to _Formalcast_. It’s not my preference, but I’m perfectly competent in it.”

“If talking in standard language has the weakness of letting me understand your casting — no, all _ninja_ — then why do you use it? And why has no one else that I’ve seen used it?”

Her expression sours slightly. “Well, that’s actually the _only_ weakness of _Commoncast_ — yeah, I’m trying to find a better name for that. Anyways, it might be easier to talk about why I use it in the first place.” Leona smiles slightly, raising a finger. “First of all, as you might’ve guessed, I invented this style. Well, I’m sure other people have tried it, but those people aren’t too well documented. But in a certain sense, it’s _mine,_ and that gives me a bit of power. I’ll explain.”

“You are of course aware that magic is comprised of intent, amongst other things, right? Well, owning something magical increases your connection to it. It makes it stronger. Your intent is sharper and more focused, and that in turn increases your power. That’s why even veteran casters will still incant even if they no longer need to, and it’s why incantations are sometimes shouted or spoken rather than whispered, especially at the lower level.”

I nod, understanding. Just like qi techniques.

_And the primary weakness of Commoncast, that it can be understood, is a weakness that exists within ‘Formalcast’, too, when combating other mages. So it’s not a weakness at all, unless you are fighting someone who doesn’t know Formalcast._

“Back to intent. The name for the common casting style, which uses the Old Tongue, is called _Formalcast._ ”

“But?”

“It’s stupid and dumb.” She huffs. “Every syllable has dozens of different meanings, and each of them have their own characters. Some things change when you put them together, and some words don’t even have any relation to their components. It’s a terrible, complex language, and even experienced adults don’t know half of it. It slows down learning because half the time you’re trying to figure out what you’re saying, and then you have to force yourself to believe in it.” 

“Ah…so because you use the common language, your comprehension increases, which sharpens your intent?”

“Exactly so.” She grins. “So my spellcasting is a bit stronger when I use Commoncast _._ Incidentally, it’s actually _weaker_ than average when I use Formalcast, but my weaker is still stronger than most magi.”

“Because you think Formalcast is stupid?” I clarify. The smile she flashes me lights up the room. 

“I can see you’re going to be an _excellent_ apprentice.”

“We’ll see about that.” A refined, mature voice says. Leaping out of my seat, I come face to face with Leona’s mother, who has literally appeared from thin air next to me. 

_I couldn’t detect her at all! How is that possible?! With the power she was outputting earlier, such a thing—_

“Wait outside.” Alexandria’s wand appears in her hand, already pointing at Leona, and before the girl can react she’s illuminated by a glowing purple outline, vanishing in the next second. 

Rapidly, the wand twirls in her hand, reversed to hit the door with another silent spell that outlines it in red. A moment later, a force crashes into the door from the outside with enough force to rattle it in its hinges, but it remains in place. 

“We’ll have a few minutes to ourselves.” She mutters, before turning to me with sharp eyes. 

“That wand of yours…” I mutter. “That was not there before. And then it was. Where did you summon your wand from? That was no sleight-of-hand trick.” 

The woman smiles thinly, lazily sitting on Leona’s conjured chair. 

“Subspace. Now, ninja. Or should I say…Ice Aberrant? If you wish to learn just why it is that Alune executes Ice Aberrants on the spot — the _true_ reason, not the horse manure they feed you — you will sit. _Now._ ” 

…

I sit. 


	98. (4.2.2) False Dichotomy, Part 2

#  **4.2.2 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **False Dichotomy, Part Two**

“Good. You follow directions well.” 

I ignore her casually patronizing words. “What would you know about Ice Aberrants?” I ask instead. 

“Plenty.” Alexandria says calmly. “But first I’d like to know if you’ve already figured it out. You’ve talked with my daughter, haven’t you? You should already know.”

“Magic.” I answer noncommittally. “We’re threats, with our potential for magic...so if an Ice Aberrant wanted to get stronger, they might go to Arcacia.”

Alexandria nods. “Additionally, Arcacia actively attempts to scout and kidnap children with the Ice Aberration. You see, Ice Aberrants can actually be trained _properly_ here. Our understanding of the Mindscape and of the spirit dramatically exceeds anything that Lunaria is capable of.”

“...I’d like to think I came out just fine, though.”

Her sharp gaze meets my own. “Perhaps. You shouldn’t have, though. Why are you immune to the Ice that creeps over your heart? No, not quite immune...Recently…you came closer to it than you have in a while, haven’t you?”

Outwardly, I don’t react, even though she’s hit it on the head. 

Her lips thin into a narrow line. “I can feel the frost on your manatrace. It was close. Very close, wasn’t it? And the way your soul feels, recently healed…you must have used some truly drastic measures to avoid losing yourself.” 

I rock back, eyes wide. “You…you can…even with my aura this suppressed?”

_Manatrace? Is that their analogue to the aura? It seems far more...detailed, if she can read that much into it! Or, perhaps, she’s just that good...?_

“So tell me the truth. What keeps you bound, Yuki of Alune?” 

I grit my teeth. This woman is truly formidable, to be able to parse my qi that thoroughly while I’m in the midst of actively suppressing it. 

“If your answer is not satisfactory, I shall slay you where you sit.”

The threat rolls off her tongue so casually I almost miss it. 

“Because of the threat I pose to your daughter?” I ask, deflecting from the question she’s asked. 

“Precisely.” She says serenely. Despite her words, not even a flicker of killing intent escapes her. “But there is another way. I offer you every state secret that I am aware of. In return, you shall make every attempt to avoid my daughter and cut contact with her.”

I stare at her, stunned for a moment. “All this? Why — ah, I believe I understand. That being said, though...I refuse.”

“Why?” She doesn’t look particularly surprised. In fact, I can’t read any emotion from her face at all.

“Because I actually like your daughter.” I say flatly. “Otherwise, I would have approached that duel very differently.”

“How so?”

“I would have approached it with lethal intent.” Her fingers tighten very subtly on her wand. “From the very beginning, after I hit her with the rock, I could have finished her then and there. I can launch a lethal technique in the time it would have taken her to hit the ground. And there’s other things I could have done, but they simply wouldn’t have been acceptable for a fight where I didn’t want to maim or kill my opponent. I tried my hardest, certainly, but I handicapped myself from the beginning, the same way I’m sure she did.”

“…Every magical and state secret I can think of.”

“How about you let me hold that sword of yours and I’ll tell you why it is I’m bound?” I counter-offer. 

“Hm.” She glances down at the sheathed blade at her waist. “Maybe it’ll do what Leona didn’t.” Without further ado, she tosses it to me, and I stand to catch it. 

The second I touch it, I flinch.

_What is this? This blade is most certainly not like any of the other magical weapons I’ve held. It has a sheathe similar to that which I’m accustomed to from the Mage Knights, but…the feeling of this blade is very different. It feels…dangerous. More dangerous than a normal sword is, somehow. Is that what she meant with that last statement?_

“May I draw the blade?” 

She inclines her head. Narrowing my eyes, I touch my hand to the hilt of the blade.

**How very…interesting.**

I force my grip to remain steady even as my instincts tell me to drop the sword — the sword that has just spoken to my mind with a gravelly, metallic tone. 

_You are sentient?_

**In a manner of speaking, Cold One.**

_…What manner would that be?_

**How would one define sentience? Does one need to possess a soul? If so, I would be considered sentient. Or, perhaps, does the ability to think for one’s self matter more? Is the ability to reason sentience? Or is it the ability to feel? Or is it some quality undiscussed?**

_I must admit that I am unsure. Of those, then, which are you capable of?_

**All of them.**

_I see. I apologize, then._

**For?**

_Had I known you were sentient, I would have treated you with far more respect. I could tell that there was something different about you, but I couldn’t have imagined anything like this._

**I know.**

I note distantly that the blade’s voice sounds faintly…amused?

**I can read your mind, after all.**

This time, I flinch slightly. My Mindscape and Veil together should create an impassable mental barrier, but yet... 

**There are many things you have not experienced or comprehended. What you experience now is one of those.**

_I understand. Thank you._

**I sense that my Wielder is growing impatient. You have time for one more question, perhaps.**

A dozen questions flash through my mind before I settle on one.

_Do you have a name?_

**I do. It is not something you have the ability to understand at this time, however, so I shall show you.**

Briefly, an image flashes through my head — a series of characters that I’ve never seen before. 

_Is that male or female?_

A ringing sound that I realize is some sort of laughter ripples through my mind.

**How interesting. By your standards, male, I suppose.**

_Thank you. Even if I do not understand now, I shall try my best to learn._

**I know you shall.**

“Are you ready to draw the blade now?” Alexandria asks impatiently.

I glance at her. She had referred to the blade as an ‘it’ before, hadn’t she? 

“Yes.” Tightening my grip on the hilt, I draw it in a single, fluid motion.

“What...what is this?”

The blade I’ve unsheathed is unlike any I’ve ever seen. The Mage Knight blades have a gem embedded in the hilt and are formed out of a light, magically-conductive metal.

There’s no doubt that this sword can conduct magic just fine, for it is made out of a deep purple crystal. It seems to pulse slightly with a faint inner glow.

And…

“This sword appears to be hollow.” I muse. “No wonder it’s so light. It doesn’t seem to be particularly sharp, either.” I fly through a short, rapid series, the blade whistling through the air. “…I see. All of these shortcomings are compensated for with magic. The blade is meant to be filled by your magic, giving it substance and weight. The same as other magically-conductive swords, but far more effective, I imagine.” 

Metallic laughter rings through my head. It sounds...pleased.

“Your hand is not burnt.” She comments, interested. “It has not rejected you.”

“He.” I correct.

“Pardon?”

“Does this mean anything to you?” I deflect. Taking command of my Ice, I create a simple rectangular plane and inscribe the symbols on it—

“Hm? Now where would you have learned the Ancient Tongue?” She gives me a wary look. “Those characters, together, mean _taragikaateru._ In Arcacian, which would be translated roughly as _World Miracle Generator._ ”

“World miracle generator…?” I muse to myself. “Is there a particular meaning behind those words?”

“Yes.” She answers. “Those who hold those titles are known as _spellweavers_ — and yes, Yuki of Alune, those people possess about the same level of ability as your own spellweavers do.”

“Spellweaver, huh?” I mutter. 

“So, it spoke to you?” She deduces, then shakes her head briefly. “No. Not it. _He_ , you said. What did he tell you?” 

“Not much.” I say truthfully. “I had very little time with him, after all.” Reverently, I sheathe the blade and move to hand it over.

**We shall meet again. Soon.**

_I look forward to it._

Then she takes the blade back and the voice is gone. 

“I’d contemplated simply murdering you in this room.” She states bluntly. “You have the potential to be one of the greatest magi in the world, Yuki of Alune. With that responsibility comes the potential to do great things. Whether good things, or terrible things…that’s up to you. And I do not trust you.”

A pulse of magic ripples from outside of the corridor. 

“Well—“ 

Abruptly, the solid metal door crumples into a dense metal ball before being launched at Alexandria. Her wand appearing in her hand, she hits it with such an intense burst of flame that the projectile dissolves into nothingness.

“Mother!” Leona yells, wand raised and eyes glowing, “Don’t you dare!”

“About time.” I smile. “I was waiting for you to rescue me.” 

The two stare at me strangely, despite holding each other at wand-point. 

“So when are you going to save me?” I ask. 

“…Huh?” Leona asks, confused. 

Mari gingerly peeks her head into the room. “Hey, captain, you alright there?”

“Oh, yeah. Just having some fun.”

Leona’s eyebrow begins to twitch. 

“Well, it was great having a talk with you.” I bow to Alexandria slightly. “Oh, and if you were wondering…the things that bind me are the people I care about, as I told you.” I point at Leona. “And your daughter is one of those people I, surprisingly, have come to care about. I’m not going to willingly betray her, no matter how much you offer me. Sorry. That’s just how it is. Leona, Mari, shall we go?”

“Uh…sure, captain.”

“…Eh?” 

“Sounds like it.” I say, dragging them out of the room by their arms. “Ah, before I go…Spellweaver! It was an honor to meet you!” I turn around and bow. 

“W-Wait, that woman’s a spellweaver?!” Mari asks, shocked.

_That isn’t what I meant, but…_

“Something like that.” I mutter. “Now, let’s go.”

Alexandria doesn’t stop our departure, her lips set in a thin line as she watches us leave. 

…

“Wow.” Leona says once we get to our assigned room. “That was…interesting.”

“Oh, you have no idea.” I smirk. 

“You seem to be in…quite the light mood.” Mari says cautiously. “Did something happen?”

“Did something happen?” I echo. “Oh, you have no idea.” I turn to our resident magical expert. “Leona, how would you shackle a spirit or soul to a weapon?”

“So Mother told you about Spellweaver?” Leona asks, eyes wide.

I smile. “No. I had the privilege of communing with the soul directly.”

“That’s dangerous! You shouldn’t be doing that around someone — or _something_ — you don’t know.”

I blink. “Oh. But it didn’t _feel_ dangerous.”

“Yuki, if that thing hadn’t respected you, it could have destroyed your soul!” She holds her right hand out. “I tried to steal it from Mother once. The blade rejected me.”

I stare at the faint burn scar across the palm of her hand. 

“Oh.” I pause to absorb that information. “But it didn’t reject me.” 

“Don’t you care at all about what could have happened to you?!” 

“Get used to it.” The strangely silent Storm Mistress tells her. “Yuki’s a bit special in the head.”

“Is that really necessary?” I ask flatly. 

“Yes.” She replies bluntly. “It is.” 

“He really doesn’t notice?” Leona presses her. 

“He does. He just doesn’t care.” 

I blink. 

“Why should I care about hurting myself? I don’t feel the pain and regenerate from every injury. As long as it doesn’t kill me, what’s the problem?”

“See?” Mari asks, completely ignoring me. “That’s exactly what I mean. I thought it was strange before, but it all makes sense now.”

“His Ice Aberration, right?” 

“Exactly so.” 

_I don’t understand. What is their problem with this?_

I hesitate, remembering a moment where Sayaka had hit me and cried because I had… 

_Or…maybe I do understand, after all._

“Sorry.” I apologize. Mari gives me a strange look. “I’ll try to take better care of myself.” 

“Good.” The blonde magus nods, satisfied. “Because if you die, I’m going to get in a lot of trouble. So try not to do stupid things that’ll cause you to die, okay?”

I laugh. “Alright. Sure.” 

She flashes a grin. “Anyways, Yuki. About binding a soul or spirit…well, there’s really only two ways. Consent, or overwhelming force.” 

“Which did your mother use?” Mari asks curiously.

“Overwhelming force.” 

“Somehow, I’m not surprised.” I mutter. “Perhaps that’s why he seemed to respect me.”

“He?” Leona parrots. Then her eyes widen. “The spirit?! I didn’t ask! Wait, so it — er, he? — didn’t reject you?”

“Not at all.” I summarize my brief conversation with the blade.

The magus bites her lip. “I wonder what it...he, has in mind.”

“I’m curious as well.” I say simply. “Also, is there another way to communicate with it that doesn’t involve opening my soul to it?”

She shakes her head. “If there is, I’m not sure. You have to understand that Mother’s sword, and artifacts like it, are exceedingly rare. Familiar spirits of the type sealed within her blade are tremendously powerful. It takes several very powerful magi to take them down. And even then, there’s usually a fatality or two.”

“Just what makes them so strong?” Mari asks. “Do they use magic like you use?”

She hums thoughtfully. “You ninja use the system of ‘chakara’, ‘chakra’, or what you call ‘qi’. And us magi use the system of magic, or ‘Magika’. Those mean “force control inner” and “outer miracle”, respectively.”

“Chakara and Magika?” Mari asks. “What exactly are those names from?”

“The Ancient Tongue, isn’t it?” I ask, coming to a sudden realization. “It’s the same language that your Formalcast uses, right?”

Leona starts, surprised. “Yeah, exactly. As the name suggests, it predates Low and High Arcacian, and it’s what Formalcast’s incantations are based on. Anyways, what the spirits use — their True Magics — precedes both Chakara — ergh, I’ll just say ‘chakra’ — and Magika.”

“And, based on your words, it’s stronger for it, right?”

“Absolutely.” The magus agrees. “Their control is far purer and more natural than anything a magus is capable of.”

_Purer and natural…? Hey, doesn’t that sound like…?_

I file the thought away for later.

“Understood.” I muse. “So, Leona…tutor us on this magic of yours?” 

She nods. “Good thing it’s a Saturday. We have some time.”

…

We get back to our rooms at close to midnight, brains crammed with information. Leona proved to be an efficient teacher, rapidly flitting through topics in a logical, concise manner. Although it’s too much for either of us to digest immediately, I can use my Mindscape to properly sort everything out with some meditation.

“Hey, Yuki. You heard it too, didn’t you?” The brunette asks. 

“About the aberrations? Of course I did.” I say quietly. “I’m not sure if we can jump to that conclusion, but…it’s possible. Very possible.” 

“What does it mean for us?” 

I shrug. “Perhaps nothing at all. Maybe all it means is that we’re a little closer to familiar spirits than others. I don’t know how aberrations work, other than the fact that you’re born with them. It’s the same way for their Clairvoyance. Maybe we’re just touched by something special the same way all Users are different from non-Users. Who knows?” 

She hums, looking contemplative. 

“You’ve been surprisingly quiet.” I note. “Ever since the invasion…any reason why?”

Mari winces.

“I’m…still scared.” She admits. “A little less so, I’ll admit, but…honestly, there’s so much happening that I don’t even know what to think. I haven’t even had time to properly process my feelings. But it’s hard to say that, because you’re so confident even though you’ve haven’t done anything like this before.”

“You’re right.” I say calmly. “I’m confident. It’s all I can be.” I briefly tap the spot over my heart, and she nods in understanding. “I can’t accept failure. I—“ 

I think of Setsuna, of Sayaka, of Hikaru and Katsuo and Kitaro and Mirai—

“—I have too much to leave behind just yet. I don’t fear death.” I stare at my hands. “But...I don’t want to die yet. And I’m going to make sure that you, and I, and Leona, maybe — we’re all going to go home together safely, alright?” 

She smiles. “You like that girl, don’t you?”

I incline my head. “As a friend? Absolutely. She seems like a kindred spirit.”

“Heh.” Mari chuckles. “I think I’m starting to get her measure, too...she seems nice enough to talk to, at least—”

“The communication scroll.” I realize. 

_How did I forget!?_

Unsealing it from my hip, I quickly write a summary of everything that’s gone on — Mari helping me with an encryption code — and I pulse qi into the array to send it—

It shorts out. I stare at it in disbelief. 

“...That’s not good.” Mari whispers.

  
  



	99. (4.2.3) False Dichotomy, Part 3

#  **4.2.3 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **False Dichotomy, Part Three**

A knock on my door heralds eight in the morning. Opening the door reveals Leona, starry-eyed with a cheerful smile on her face.

“Good morning!” 

“Morning.” 

Mari trails in behind her, waving. 

“So, are you guys ready to learn more about magic?” She asks gleefully. “I’ll be working with Yuki, and you, Mari, will be working with my mother.”

“Why?” I ask curiously.

“My mother’s curious.” The blonde admits. “And Yuki and I have a project to be working on.” 

“She’s training me to be a magus.” I clarify to my teammate. 

“Oh.” Mari muses over the thought. “Interesting. Very interesting…a mage ninja, then? Or…a magi-nin?” 

“Magi-nin…?” Leona muses. “Yeah, that’s better than ninja magus.” 

I roll my eyes. 

“Well, where do I need to go?” Mari asks. 

“Training Arena. The same place I dueled Yuki. You know where, right?”

“Of course.” Mari says breezily. “Then, I’ll be off. See you later, Yuki, Leona.” The Storm Mistress departs quickly from the room.

“So…magical training?” I ask, as Leona closes the door and casually casts a spell on it. 

“Yep. Of a sort.” She grins, turning around and drawing something out of her pocket. “Catch.” 

I catch the long, thin case with ease, eyeing it warily.

“Is this a…wand holster?” 

She shakes her head. “A case, not a holster. You don’t need a holster with your seals, right?” 

I nod. I know enough sealing to be able to do that much. 

“Right.” 

“Good. Then, open it, Yuki.”

I snap the latch of the case and extract the object nestled inside. As one might imagine, contained within is a simple wand, but unlike the ones I’ve seen so far. Rather than a wooden rod, I pick up a simple metal rod, with a small indent at one end. A simple raised ring at the opposite end seems to be where I hold the opposite end.

“It’s inert, right?” I ask curiously.

“Of course.” Leona answers. “You can’t bind to the wand. It lacks the focusing gem. But that’s what you’ll be providing. Remember what we did back in that house? You’ll be doing it again, except this time, you’ll be finishing your own wand.” 

“So this is mine, huh…?” I muse, twirling the wand in my hand. “It’s…certainly interesting.” 

I’m not sure if I like it yet. I can feel the potential in the object I hold, but it’s disconnected and inert. It isn’t the same as…

“Hey, Leona. What function does a wand have?” 

Her wand appears in her hand. Now that I’m looking for it, I can confirm my earlier suspicion — it really is just appearing out of nowhere. 

“So there’s the focusing gem, pretty self explanatory — it gathers the power for the spell from the air. Then the rest of the wand focuses that power, channels it, and directs it. It’s why most spells are linear in direction — it’s just natural to go through the wand. You actually have to concentrate to shape or direct it in any other fashion.”

“Alright. So…I just plug my Ice into the slot?”

“Pretty much.”

“Alright.” I call my Aberration to the surface, a glimmer of Etheria slipping into my hands. “And now I just…do this.” 

The blonde shivers as Ice abruptly snaps into the insert, tendrils of frost racing down the shaft. 

“Alright, now what?”

“Um…you can’t sense it?” Leona bites her lip. 

“No?” 

Strange. I could feel it just fine in battle, at least to an extent. But now I can’t. 

“Hm...let me figure something out. Go seal that wand for now, then.”

…

“Can you feel it?” Leona asks me, her hand in mine. 

“…Sort of.” 

After close to an hour of experimenting and a move to her room so that she can reference one of a dozen large tomes, Leona eventually settled on this method that involves physical contact with a magus. Hence, why I’m sitting on the couch with her, holding her hand. 

“What does it feel like?” 

By initiating physical contact, I’m able to feel more directly the magic that she manipulates.

“It’s…warm?”

It isn’t unlike sensing qi, but it’s certainly much harder for me to _grasp_ , so to speak. I have no problem feeling the presence of magi — it seems that the act of using or channeling magic quickens their energy and makes them notable — but sensing magic itself is much harder. The energy is easy enough to detect, but that’s because I’m able to ‘observe’ the _results_ , so to speak. 

I don’t understand it. We’ve established that qi and magic are the same thing, so what am I missing? To try and figure it out, she’s giving me as intimate a look at her magic as possible to allow me to more closely probe it..

“Yep. That’s my Fire magic. How about now?” 

I don’t need the resultant breeze to tell me what she’s channeling now. “Wind.”

“And now?”

“…Water.”

The last was so faint that, had I not been particularly attuned to the element with my own Water manipulations, I wouldn’t have been able to detect it at all. Her other hand comes out from behind her back, revealing a floating ball of liquid that she dismisses. 

“Good. You can sense the elements, so…ah, how about this?” 

I concentrate hard, but I’m not able to detect any change in her at all. 

“Nothing.” I admit. She frowns at my words, then visibly concentrates, closing her eyes. A sheen of sweat rapidly develops on her face, and her skin begins gently glowing with the power she’s channelling. 

“I can see it, but I can’t _feel_ it. But I can feel the energy within you. That’s your qi, though — well, your _chakra_ , I suppose.” 

She relaxes, releasing her hold on the energy and allowing it to dissipate. Letting out a long, relieved breath, emerald eyes open to meet mine once more. 

_It’s like when she talked about pure and impure magic. I can detect the contamination magi output, but not the magic itself?_

I say as much, and she agrees thoughtfully. “We’ll need to try something a little different...ah, I know!” Her wand snaps into her hand and bats against the side of my arm, _something_ happening to it. Flinching, I send it spiraling away from me with a swat of my hand as I roll, shoving her into the couch as I flip onto my feet in an instant. 

“What was that?” I ask, prepared to call qi to my hands if need be. 

“Uh, what?” 

“You cast a spell on me, didn’t you? What was it?!” I ask. 

“W-Wait, you could _feel_ that?!” 

I hesitate, realizing that yes, I _had_ felt whatever she’d casted. Then hesitate again as I realize I can sense zero negative intent from the girl. 

_Perhaps I’m being a bit too wary._

“Er, sorry about that. Yes. Was it pure magic?” 

“It was a reinforcement spell. Did it work?!” She smiles sheepishly. “Sorry, I should have warned you.” 

Experimentally, I flex my arm before my eyes widen as I realize that I can still feel the foreign energy within it. I clasp my arm, pressing qi into it as I probe it, getting a feel for it. Yes, this _is_ just like qi, in many ways. Oh, there are certainly differences, the biggest one being this sort of…foreign tint, for lack of a better word. A kind of presence that I can’t identify.

“Yuki?” 

“One second.” 

I close my eyes, trying to interpret exactly what I’m feeling. What I’m feeling is undoubtedly the same ‘magic’ that the magi use, or at least a type of it. Reinforcement, right? It was described as pure magic, but now that I deeply analyze it, I can tell that isn’t the case. There’s a distinct _earthly_ feel to it. No wonder Earth users handle it better. 

Concentrating further, I’m able to pick out a tiny ‘strand’ of light, as well. This must be Leona’s personal tint, the flavor of her magic. Fire energy. Huh. So what exactly is this? I caress the magic with my qi, trying to understand it, identify it, comprehend it. It’s no use — my prodding at it has worn it down, as has my natural resistance. Not to mention that the spell was interrupted, and— 

My eyes fly open, locking on the petite mage. “I need more.” 

“More what? Magic? If you let me get my wand back, I can—“ 

No, there’s a better way to do this. Without hesitating, I grab her hand and bring my aura to bear, letting it surge through my body until my nerves are humming with the power I’ve brought to the surface, pressing down into Leona’s much weaker aura— 

It seems to _surrender_ to me, for lack of a better word. The initial resistance immediately melts away, leaving me to press my aura against her magic. Closing my eyes, I focus on analyzing the sensations I feel from my qi pressing directly against her magic. No, not quite — this is definitely her innate chakra, not her magic, she has no wand. Her chakra.

I growl in frustration as I pull away. I can’t access her magic like this. The only way is to have her cast a spell, or—

_I can do that too!_

I push a bit of healing qi into her. The results are quite interesting. Her innate qi initially resists, but once again quickly surrenders. Although she isn’t channeling magic, disarmed as she is, I can still feel plenty of residual chakra within her. That makes sense, and explains the aura that she _does_ have. The way she described magic, as a system that absorbs external energy, directs it, and releases it — seems to line up with my findings. 

However, this contradicts what I know about Alexandria. Her power, after all, had been rather intimidating. Upon reflection, I note that there may not necessarily be any kind of timer on the three steps. Actually, if you simply held on to magical energy, couldn’t you release it whenever you wanted to?

_There could be another explanation, I suppose. I know of magics that rely on the internal arts, after all, such as reinforcement. Who’s to say there aren’t more of those?_

The residual magic in Leona’s body is enough for me to analyze, though. With ease, I’m able to identify the sort of ‘light’ tint that I’ve come to associate with her magic, as well as fire, wind, and water flavors, though in dramatically decreasing potencies. But I still can’t figure out the pure magic itself, only able to identify it by that _foreign_ tint that— 

I pause for a moment as I realize my mistake, and drop her hand. And I can _feel_ it. The magic in the air. The foreign tint, now that I know to look for it, know what it feels like — it’s faint, but I can still detect it. 

“I’ve been thinking about this all wrong. _Obviously_ I can’t comprehend or explain what magic is. It just _is_ , the same way my qi is. I don’t try to explain qi. It’s a fundamental building block of the world. And so is magic. They’re both the same, but just a little different. How, though? If—”

I stop, realizing the blonde hasn’t said anything in a while. “Hey, Leona, you awake in there?” 

She stares at me blankly. “...I should hit you.” 

“What?”

She sighs exasperatedly. “But you have no idea what you just did. Well, it’s okay. You should never do that to anyone ever again without their consent, though.” 

“Huh?”

“Yuki.” She says flatly. “You basically opened up a communion between our souls the same way you did to Spellweaver. If I had felt the slightest bit of hostile intent from you, my magic would have responded by tearing you apart.” 

“...oh. Wait, _that’s_ what that does?” I think about the time I’d done something similar with Sayaka, when we’d— 

—then again when I’d used my power and slammed it into Setsuna’s to force a possession out of her— 

“Oh. Shit. I’m sorry, Leona. That’s not what I — I didn’t realize—” 

“I know.” She replies dryly, palming her face. “Well, I need to purge your magic from my body now if I want to be able to cast anything normally, so...you’ll have to give me fifteen minutes or so. That being said, though, it seems like you’ve figured out how to sense magic, right?” 

“Er, yeah.” 

“Good.” The blonde says, and she really does seem pleased. “Now go away. I’ll come find you when I’m done, alright?”

I nod. “I’m sorry.” 

She shrugs, a rueful smile on her face. “I’m not upset about it now, but I really do need to cleanse my magic first...and that will be easier without distraction.” 

“Alright.” I agree, stepping away from her. “See you soon.” 

“Later.” 

I exit and shut the door — then come face to face with a major obstacle. 

“My daughter’s room was locked until you came out.” Alexandria Dawn scowls, apparently having been waiting in ambush around the corner. Not sure why I feel a sudden sense of unease, I immediately answer with the first thing that comes to mind— 

“We were practicing magic.” 

A delicate eyebrow raises. “You, a non-magus, were practicing magic? You have no wand and certainly aren’t trained enough to cast wandlessly.”

I’d better watch my step. Although Leona hates Arcacia, this woman doesn’t. She’s part of the Resistance, sure, but all the same…

_She’s wrong on one count, though. I do have a wand._

“Well, she was practicing magic. I watched.”

_Technically true._

“I was under the impression that you were working with Mari?” I deflect, surprised.

“We’ve finished.” The woman says succinctly. “I wished to see what she was capable of.”

I stiffen. “Is she okay?” 

“She’ll wake up in your room within the next few hours. I’ve set a ward that will let me know when she regains consciousness, and I’ll head back to her at that time.”

“I see. And your conclusion?”

“Unpolished.” The magus says curtly. “Needs work. But she has quite a bit of potential. Perhaps things might have gone differently had she come at me with the intent to kill like I told her to.” 

I glance up and down her body. “Your clothes aren’t scratched at all. Did you fight in them?” 

A raised eyebrow. “No. I changed into proper attire. It would be disrespectful to my opponent not to be.”

“Ah...” I stare at her. “I see. You’re a _noble_ noble, aren’t you?”

She blinks, taken aback for a moment. The moment of weakness passes as fast as it comes, but—

“I merely live up to the standard that all magi should live by.” She says simply.

The corner of my lips twitch into a smile.

“What’s so amusing?”

“I’m simply thinking about your daughter.”

The woman sighs imperceptibly, but I continue.

“She doesn’t act like you at all, but she gives me the exact same impression, in some ways.”

“Is that so?” She asks neutrally. “How, exactly? You’re the first one in some time to compare us favorably.” 

“The pride’s the first thing.” I answer. “Both of you have a magus’ pride. But the thing that separates you two from other magi…at least, the first thing, is that you two both work your asses off to get to where you are today. Leona’s…determined. I can tell. It’s admirable. She’s a magus, certainly, but there’s definitely a little bit of ninja in there, too. Sneaky, quick-witted, intelligent and resourceful…” 

“And you, Lady Dawn…” I refer to her by her respectful title, “I can see all of that in you, too. You just hide it behind that nobility…or perhaps that nobility is what drives you to such lengths.” I muse. “I can respect that.”

“Flattering.” She says crisply, but she seems a little bit less chillingly hostile overall. Looks like my words have connected with her. 

“Is there anything I can do to help you, Lady Dawn?” I ask, bowing marginally. This woman has earned my respect in a way few others have, and so I don’t mind showing it to her. 

_…Also, I can privately admit that she terrifies me a little bit._

_…And it’s possible that I’ll need her favor to jump ship with Leona in tow._

_…And I’m curious about her sword._

“Much.” 

I blink, surprised.

“First and foremost, I’d like to know how far Leona’s gotten with teaching you magic.”

“…How obvious was it?” 

Her lips curl in what could almost barely be called a smile. “Come now, you said it as much yourself. In any case, it’s rather obvious. You’re an Ice Aberrant. Focusing gems rely on crystals. It’s why I’ve been so concerned with you. That quirk of yours is special, even amongst other Aberrations. There are a few that can do the same, but the Crystal Aberration hasn’t been seen in a century whereas an Ice User usually pops up about every decade or so.” 

“Fascinating.” I murmur. “That’s not what I’ve heard at all.”

“I imagine your country filters out information. Being an Ice Aberrant is…trying, to say the least.”

I snort at the understatement. “Well, we’ve only just started. I can detect magic now as its own thing, rather than…” My eyes widen. “The spiritual component. No wonder. That’s why I could detect the spells Leona cast at me in our duel. Intent.”

Her lips purse in thought. “Pure and impure magic.”

_She jumped to that conclusion so quickly!_

“I’m not surprised you can detect spells casted with hostile intent. Of course, that won’t be sufficient if you want to learn to combat magi.” 

I agree, and say as much. 

She nods. “A question for you, now. Is magic and your _qi_ the same?”

I hesitate to answer that.

“I’d like to hear your own thoughts before I answer that.” I reply. “I’ve spent some time thinking about the subject, and I have more than a few unanswered questions.”

“They are.” She says, before pausing. “But they aren’t, either.”

“What?” I ask blankly. “That isn’t something you can answer with a yes and a no.”

Her lips briefly quirk up into an amused smile. “Perhaps. Tell me, Yuki of Alune. What have you learned? What have you seen?”

_Let’s go over everything I’ve learned._

“Magic and qi are virtually the same. Yet, magic feels _different_ from qi in a way that made pure magic almost impossible to detect for me.”

“Magic is a base component of the world the same way that qi is.”

“Magical spells consist of intent, an incantation, and a corresponding motion, and are casted with a magical focus. These foci are made of crystals, and all crystals have the potential to be foci. Of course, some materials are much more suited than others.”

“A skilled enough magus can remove every element except for the intent itself to cast the spell. Therefore, everything that isn’t intent is just a _crutch_ — a way to help less skilled magi use magic.”

“There are some things magic can do that qi can’t do readily— such as repairing the floor, or sealing and unsealing a door. Chakra can create and be used in _mechanisms_ to do that, but not actually outright do it.”

“There is no real limitation on wandless magic — on sorcery — except for the ability of the caster.”

I close my eyes, digging deep. “Once you’ve stripped away all of the smoke and mirrors, qi and magic are virtually the same in every single way except for two things. The first are aberrations and Clairvoyance. What are they? Are they simple mutations? If so, why are they so _different_ ? One creates mutations in qi affinities, and the other gives a whole mess of special abilities and _limited future-sight._ And second…why can magic do things that qi can’t? Those are the two questions I don’t have any answers to.”

She nods as I reopen my eyes. “Congratulations. You’ve discovered two of the top mysteries of magic.” 

I groan. “So there’s no real answer, then?”

“Oh, there’s an answer out there. It’s just that you and I don’t have access to it right now.” 

I sigh. “Alright. So that’s what you wanted to know?”

“Amongst other things.” She agrees. “But it seems like we’re out of time. It seems my daughter is ready to continue her ‘magic demonstrations’ with you.”

Sure enough, a second later, the door to Leona’s room opens and the girl in question steps out. 

_That was much faster than expected._

“Hey.” She seems unsurprised to see her mother outside, turning to favor me with a slight smile. “Ready to keep working?” 

I glance quizzically between mother and daughter. The whole situation feels bizarrely orchestrated, but I don’t know why or how. 

“I suppose so.” 

We return to her room once more, Alexandria’s stare on my back as we depart.

…

“You can still feel it, right?”

I nod. Now that I understand it more, it’s easier to distinguish from the air, and the ambient qi. Unsurprisingly, the feeling of magic far outweighs the feeling of qi here. 

_It’s the complete opposite on the other side of the border. I wonder what that means...?_

At her guidance, when I really concentrate, I find that the two energies _don’t even mix._ They coexist, certainly, but mix? No, not quite. Like oil to water, the two interact without ever combining. 

_The same…but different…?_

“Have a better feel for it?” Her voice breaks me out of my reverie. 

“I do.” 

“Good. Then…let’s try it, shall we? As discussed earlier.” I nod, unsealing my wand. 

Then, holding the wand in my hand, I take a deep breath and relax, falling into my meditative trance once more. This close, I can feel the Ice focus in my wand calling to me. It’s mine, after all, in a way no other thing is. I know that I could easily dissolve it if I so chose, although the energy I’ve put into it would be lost to me, dissipated into the air.

“Hey, Yuki. May I humbly request to borrow your wand?” 

I give it to her without hesitation. She blinks, surprised, then takes it from me. 

“ _Illuminate_.” 

A soft, pale glowing light erupts from the focusing gem, ever-so-slightly tinted blue. She stares at it with undisguised fascination. 

“I’m still amazed that this works.” She switches the spell off before handing my wand back to me. “Now, I want you to try. There’s no wand motion. The incantation is as I said.”

“Illuminate.” I say blandly, wanting to see what will happen. As anticipated, nothing does — the wand doesn’t stir, and the magic doesn’t react. Leona says nothing, apparently having guessed my intentions. 

I concentrate, willing the tip of the wand to light up. “Illuminate!” 

Nothing happens. I frown and slip deeper into my trance. 

_Illuminate_ , a light spell. Not the Formalcast that’s taught in Arcacia, but rather the Commoncast system of my blonde magus friend. As a result, it should be more compatible to me than the Formalcast of Arcacia. 

“Illuminate!” 

“You have to really believe, Yuki. Believe that the light will shine. Will it.” 

Not just a light spell, then. Upon casting, nearby magical power converts itself into light energy, the conversion originating on the magical focus. All the power already exists, and the caster merely directs it, controls it the same way a ninja would use a technique. Not complicated at all. A simple introductory-level manipulation. Anyone could do it. 

“Illuminate!” 

Nothing. My eyebrow twitches.

Magic is a stupid, arbitrary system, and I’m going to make it my slave. I said this wand would light up, so it’d better light up!

“Illuminate!”

Nothing _._

_Is that how it is?_

“Light up! Spark! Glow! Shine! Bright! Flash!” 

“Woah, slow down there!” Leona says, alarmed at my lack of composure. 

“It isn’t just intent.” I say decisively. “There’s another factor. Something else…I think it’s _knowledge._ I don’t know how to cast—“

Leona presses her hand against my forehead. For a moment, I’m too shocked to react, then I’m even _more_ shocked as I feel a burst of energy, magic, flow through our connected skin and into me. Then _knowledge_ suddenly drops into me with the force of a stone, sending me rocking back as I grab my head.

Distinctly, I’m able to recall the memories of having casted the spell, despite having never done so in my life. I’m positive. But yet, my mind remembers, even if my body doesn’t.

“What did you do?” I ask, eyes wide.

“Memory transfer.” She replies, glancing away from me awkwardly. “Sorry about that. I’m not good enough at mind magics to transfer memories any other way than through skin contact, but it’s quicker than just teaching you. But it’s going to give you a pounding headache, and I barely even gave you any.”

I numb the growing pain with a focused utilization of my Veil. “I’ll be fine. Let’s try this again, then. _Illuminate_!”

This time, there’s something more than the absolute nothing that’s been happening prior — I feel a strange draw on something within me, and a tiny flicker of power runs down the wand. It doesn’t glow, though.

Leona smiles, relieved. “Alright, progress. That’s a good start. I was worried you wouldn’t make any tonight.” 

“But I didn’t succeed.” I say flatly. 

The magus gives me a dry look. “If you’d managed to get a real spell out of your wand tonight, you’d be a magical prodigy. Not only do you have zero formal training, you haven’t undergone the ritual and you aren’t even a naturalized magus. It takes weeks for even the best to manage a spell after the ritual. What I wanted you to do was get a better grasp of your magic tonight so we can improve on your ability to _detect_ magic.” 

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

“Because you wouldn’t have tried as hard.” Leona points out. “I told you, belief and intent is the core aspect of casting, although you’re right that knowledge was important, too. I forgot about that because basically everyone knows how to cast the _Illuminate_ spell before they ever pick up a wand, but I’d forgotten that you haven’t grown up with magic the way we have.” 

I nod, and she continues. 

“But the fact that you’ve gotten your magic to react at all, Yuki? That’s incredible. It took me a month to become attuned enough with my magic to produce the slightest spark, and that was after the ritual. Well, I was only six, but...”

“Is that so…?” I mutter. She smiles. 

“All you have to do now is make magic _yours_. Attune to it, listen to it, _learn_ it. It’s as much a part of you as your qi is.”

She’s right. Now that I’m able to sense everything, I can tell the magic lies within me, the same as my qi. Oil and water. The qi is far, far stronger, proof of my training, but it’s still there. The magic is there, and has been in me this whole time. But, like a baby not knowing how to walk, I can’t make it do what I want. Not yet. That's fine — I'm supposed to be drawing on the power around me, anyways. But...

_Am I satisfied with failing?_

I reach deep within me. The incantation gets in the way, is unfamiliar to me, so I discard it. Grabbing hold of my energy, I flex my will, using the wand as a tool. Again, something happens, but this time, less. It seems that the incantation isn’t ready to be discarded. 

Fine. I disregard the spell entirely. Fuck _Illuminate_. My body doesn’t know how to make light from magical energy. 

_Make magic yours. Believe that the light will shine. Intent and knowledge._

_What does my body know how to do, then? Well, that’s obvious enough, isn’t it? I’ve known all along. The one thing that’s definitely mine, more than anything else._

I point my wand at the far wall and incant— 

“ _Freeze._ ”

Something _shifts_ within me. 

In response to my call, a bolt of blue energy erupts from the tip of the wand, crashing into the stone and freezing the whole thing with a thin layer of frost.

Leona’s head whips around from the now-frozen wall to my wand, then to me.

“Y-Yuki, did you just—“

I concentrate again, and, silently, a second bolt leaps off the crystal, striking the Ice once more. 

“Hm. It’s easier with the incantation.” I note. “Well, learning magic isn’t so hard at all. It helps that I’ve gone through this whole ‘learning a new energy system’ already. But, you know…qi’s way harder.”

She gapes at me.

“What?”

“That was…that _was_ magic, wasn’t it? Not qi, but…”

“It definitely wasn’t qi.” I assert. “I ensured all my qi stayed put, and called on my Ice nature only. Perhaps it wasn’t magic at all. Who knows?” 

“Cast again.” She instructs. 

I do so. She frowns, then draws her wand and performs a complicated series of gestures. 

“ _Analyze magic._ ” Her eyes briefly glow blue. “Again.”

“ _Freeze_ ” 

“I’ll be damned.” Leona says, staring. “That’s...that’s magic.”

_Of course it is. Of course. I haven’t undergone that ritual, after all...so I shouldn’t be surprised that the only magic I can cast is that of Ice. But still..._

“Looks like that ritual isn’t strictly necessary, huh?” I ask rhetorically.

“...I guess so...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost done with the theory! This is really important for Yuki, though, so bear with me!
> 
> Also, hey, Yuki can do magic. Just one type of magic, though. How might this help him? See you next chapter!


	100. (4.2.4) False Dichotomy, Part 4

#  **4.2.4 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **False Dichotomy, Part Four**

“There’s a few more questions I’ve been wondering about.” I ask. Leona nods, prompting me to continue. “Synergetic magic. I’ve heard many things about it, and experienced it on a massive scale. But I haven’t really been sold on just how useful it is.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever encountered a pair on the same wavelength with each other.” Leona hums thoughtfully. “Synergetic magic is at its absolute best with two individuals who share a close bond. Failing that, a simple friendship is sufficient to produce decent synergetic magic, or even merely a shared purpose. But it’s a lot less…efficient.” 

“Is that why the invasion strategy consisted of surrounding towns with a hundred mages and having them cast together with synergetic magic? Because they needed more people to cast such a large spell?” 

Leona winces. “Exactly. Ah, that amongst other things! Magic is weaker outside of Arcacia, since there’s not as much surrounding magic. That makes mages much weaker than they should be.”

I consider my fight against that mage-knight, Anna. 

_What would have she been like at full strength?_

“Hey, Yuki. You said you hadn’t seen synergetic magic properly used, right?” Leona asks. “Then, I propose a simple fight. Me and my mother against you and Mari.” 

I stare, deadpan. “I think you guys have a bit of an advantage there, don’t you?”

“Well, we’ll have a handicap, of course!”

_Hm…somehow, I still don’t think we’ll be winning this, but it’s a good experience to have. Probably._

“I accept.” I say. 

Leona nods. “I’ll go tell my Mother, then. Hang tight, alright?”

…

Apparently, everyone’s interested in the idea, and soon enough, we’re all gathered at the training arena. Leona and Alexandria both are dressed in full mage-knight regalia, apparently taking this fight very seriously. It’s only us four, thankfully — seems like Alexandria cleared everyone else out again. 

“Yo!” Mari greets me. I quickly cross over to her, waving briefly.

“So. We need a plan.”

The Storm Mistress nods. “That’s more your thing, though. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

“Well, Alexandria’s agreed to only use first-level, E-ranked spells, whatever that means. But she’s still a major threat, so we’ll need to separate them and disrupt their synergy.” I reply. “The only problem is that they’ll be anticipating it, and will react appropriately. Territory disruption is the most obvious route we can take, but…”

“Leona’s better at it than you?” Mari asks dryly.

“Pretty much.” I admit.

“Well, I have an idea of my own.” She says happily. “Alexandria told me to stop holding back, after all.”

I glance at her. “Alright. But don’t use it right away. I want to experience their synergetic magic before you disrupt things out of control...unless, of course, we really need it.” 

“Understood, captain.” 

“You guys ready over there!?” Leona calls out, twenty meters away. She stands next to her mother, wand held loosely in one hand as the other rests on Alexandria’s back.

“Yes!” Mari says gleefully, crouching and ready to move.

The elder magus stands in a relaxed stance, hand resting lightly on the hilt of her sword. 

**Then begin.**

Her voice resonates through my head. I flinch for a critical second as the sword is drawn and sent in a sweeping overhead strike right into the ground.

The earth violently quakes beneath Mari and I, throwing us off balance as it rends itself apart. 

_First level spell my ass! No, wait, if Leona was the one applying the modification, and the base form of the spell was a simple force spell—_

A staff appears in Leona’s hands, and she gleefully points it towards us as we regain our footing.

 _“Super Spark Cannon!”_

An electricity attack? With Mari— 

“ _Illuminate_.”

_“How much control do you have over that?” I ask curiously. An amused smile flits across her face._

_“Depends on who you ask.“_

An intense ball of light leaps off of the focusing gem, headed towards us.

“Close your eyes!” I shout to Mari as I do the same, qi surging through my body. The spell goes off in an incredible blast of light. Heat prickles against my skin, but I force qi into my eyes to reinforce them, knowing that something’s coming, and open them.

Mari’s body crashes into me, sending me stumbling backwards. Contrary to my fears, though, she’s completely fine, having just intercepted a blow from Leona.

The magus, glowing with red magic, attacks, her mage-blade and hard light sword carving tracers through the air. Mari parries with her spear, flinching with every strike before her Storm gathers around her. I manage to roll away just as her Storm Cloak flares up, and the next strike is easily parried as she slashes with her spear, Leona meeting it head-on. 

Eyes widening as I detect magic output, I quickly avoid a dozen fireballs fired in the span of a single breath. It’s a good thing I don’t attempt to block, as detonations ring out from the points of impact behind me.

_Wait. They’ve separated of their own will?_

Alexandria stands proudly, Spellweaver buried blade-first into the ground in front of her and glowing the same violent red that Leona shines. Her free hand wields a mage-blade, another dozen tiny fireballs rapidly blooming on them.

_Gods. Individually they’re all first-level, but when you cast like that, and when they’re empowered by the synergy…_

Wait. Leona can’t possibly be contributing energy to that, not with the intensity of the fight she’s in. It must be the other way around.

_Is she really just that strong!?_

My thoughts don’t stop me from splitting up, rapidly closing the gap as my own sword comes up, a crescent of Ice flying off of it. She negligently blocks it with her mage-blade before firing a shot into the ground in front of her, obscuring her presence. 

Eyes narrowed, I raise my blade and crash it into the ground, sending a blast of power through it towards her last position. It misses, slamming into the wards on the far side of the arena. 

_Well, if she’s going to play that game…_

Quickly using my qi to send up a wall of Ice, I disengage and race towards where Mari and Leona are hurling powerful, rapid blows at each other. It’s a physical match I can barely keep up with, but thankfully I don’t have to get close to be useful.

_It’s my Ice. It only hurts who I will it to._

Taking a deep breath, I exhale, sending a massive blast of snow towards the two combatants. Mari, trusting me, manages to grab Leona by the collar and imposes her between us. The howling blizzard slams into her back, frost immediately coating her arms and legs.

Leona flares with fire so intense that even Mari is forced to let go, although it merely resists my Ice. A moment later, she zips away out of the path of my attack—

Mari appears above her, a kick aimed to drive her into the ground. Slowed by my Ice, Leona attempts to dodge but fails, but Mari still somehow misses, her foot shattering the earth beneath her and throwing dirt into the air—

_Telekinesis!_

A moment later, Leona is hurled from the cloud, tumbling across the ground. It’s at that moment the arrow I’ve been charging finishes, and I send it forward in a streak of light.

Alexandria makes her reappearance then, a burst of magic rippling out from her as she swings Spellweaver one-handedly, her mage-blade held in the other. I watch in disbelief as that attack actually manages to deflect the arrow over her shoulder to harmlessly detonate against the wards.

A jagged bolt of lightning flies out from the dust cloud, but the magus merely thrusts her blade out, absorbing the bolt.

“You can absorb qi, can’t you?” I ask, shouting to make myself heard. “Magic too, with that sword of yours? But not physical objects?”

She smiles. 

**You’re a quick study, aren’t you?**

Then, with another swing of her blade, she sends the lightning flying back at me. 

“ _Hurricane Sword_.”

I time the attack to slam into the blade as I release the strike, the bolt overwhelmed by the tearing wind. My real target isn’t Alexandria, who should be forced to move, but rather Leona, who’s still recovering behind her. Alexandria realizes this immediately, whether as a result of her superior combat experience or her synergetic bond, and takes a firm stance—

“Now, Mari!” I shout.

The Storm User fearlessly leaps into the fight again, forcing Alexandria to turn and deflect her strike—

Leona points her wand at her mother. Nearly simultaneously, Mari hits Alexandria’s sword with a devastating downward strike, using the force to leap upwards.

The weakened _Hurricane Sword_ connects against Leona’s glittering blue shield. The magical barrier cracks, then shatters, but it holds the strike off for the second Alexandria needs to produce a dozen tiny shields on her sword that blossom into existence, absorbing most of the rest of the strike. They too break, but the remaining force is only enough to send her sliding back a half step.

Mari comes crashing to the ground a moment later, but Alexandria’s already prepared, rolling away from the impact before launching a Wind spell from her mage-blade that sends her sliding back. The Storm Mistress leaps away, looking decidedly annoyed as she retreats back to me.

“We’re stalemated.” I murmur. “We have to figure out how to overcome that sword of hers.”

“Can’t we just take one of them down?” 

“Easier said than done. Leona isn’t the weak point of this team. It’s Alexandria with her restrictions, but her strategy pivots around that sword. We have to disarm her, unless we can figure out something else.”

She nods. “Understood. You’ll have to do that, since most of my power revolves around my qi.”

I nod, watching Alexandria stab her glowing red mage-blade into the ground again. Besides her, Leona’s skin shimmers with power.

“I don’t think I can keep up with Leona when she moves like that anyways, so stick with her. Here they come!” 

Leona races between us, twin blades slashing at each of us. With the advanced warning from my magic detection abilities, I’m able to slip out of the way of the strike, rapidly moving behind and away before using Wind to jump into the air. 

_Let’s test something._

Unsealing my wand, I point it at Alexandria and focus. “ _Freeze!”_

Raising an eyebrow, she counters with a magical shield, blocking the ice-blue bolt. 

**You think you’re ready to cast magic in battle already?**

_No. It’s just a crutch, but one I can exploit!_

Ice ruptures from the frost left on her shield, rapidly spreading to the ground and around her shield. She immediately dissolves her shields and jumps away as the Ice begins spreading across the ground. I grin, magic roaring around me and qi blazing in my veins.

“ _Frozen Garden!”_

The temperature of the room sharply drops as Ice bursts into being from the permafrost, quickly covering the ground in slick frost. Instead of growing mindlessly, though, it targets Leona, racing towards her. Not noticing until it’s too late, she slips on the icy surface, and Mari ruthlessly takes advantage of it, kicking her halfway across the room with a lightning-encased foot. 

With a thought, Ice blooms from one of the patches and intercepts her, catching her in a freezing prison. Moments later, I take control of it to quickly disarm her of both her weapons, her wand and mage-blade spinning away across the Ice. 

Alexandria moves to react, but flinches and dodges away as a spike of Ice erupts where her foot is. Spellweaver carves away at the Ice underneath her, shattering the thin layer, but it regenerates itself with barely a glance from me, and more Ice keeps growing, starting to surround her. 

_All this…and I used only a small amount of qi._

It was as easy to cast magic as I thought. A little more than a flex of my will, something I’ve done all my life, and the mana around me leapt to my command. Something that would have sucked a full twentieth of my qi took a mere fraction as I called upon the energies in the air instead, combined my affinity for Ice and my wand’s own focus—

_I could have done this without qi, but it came faster, and took less from me. If only I could make this work in Lunaria..._

**We surrender.**

“What? Why?!” Mari asks, outraged. “We were just about to—“

“To win, yes.” She says simply, her voice easily managing to carry across the room. “Perhaps I could have held both of you off even with the restrictions laid upon me, but Leona is incapacitated and the point of this duel was to show off synergetic magic done properly.”

“Stand down, Mari.” I summarize, voice gentle but unyielding. Immediately, she steps back, nodding.

Next, I glance at the Ice covering the entirety of the arena.

“ _Melt_.”

The Ice dissolves into snowflakes from the center out, then those, too, melt, leaving behind a cool layer of water that Alexandria casually, silently vanishes, eyes still locked on mine.

**It would appear you have more talent than either of us had thought.**

Wordlessly, I nod, still stunned at the implications.

_Frozen Garden is little more than scattering Ice everywhere, but still..._

Leona groans, mage-knight regalia soaked with water. She absently casts a spell to immediately dry herself before wincing and rubbing her head.

“Lightbringer...what the hell was that?”

Alexandria quirks a small smile. “Yuki’s first B-ranked spell.”

“What the fuck?!”

...

Magic is the capture and usage of the natural energies in the air.

An Aberration is a primal, natural affinity.

Couple those facts with my high level of control and a wand that synergizes perfectly with me...and I’m not surprised that I was able to do what I did, novice or not. It’s not like that Frozen Garden was a new spell, after all. I’d done it before, using a chunk of Etheria and on a far larger scale than this. 

But that had been flawed. The technique had taken hours, and I’d slipped so deep into my Veil that I almost lost myself forever. I hadn’t needed to dip into my Veil at all for this. At least, not deeper than I usually have it set for battle. And the spell had come out in the span of a few seconds. 

A ‘B-ranked’ spell, Alexandria had called it. 

“What makes a spell B-ranked?” I ask directly.

The two magi glance at each other. “It’ll be easier if I just show you. Want the honors, Leona?”

“Really, Mother?” She asks, clearly excited. “But which...ooh, Firestorm?”

“Sure.” The woman says, looking amused.

“Yes!” She grins, pointing her wand at the far wall. Stand behind me, Yuki, Mari!”

Hastily, we do as she says. I can feel the magic swirling around her, gathering around her wand, a truly intense amount...

_“Firestorm!”_

A massive ball of flame erupts her wand, growing at an incredible rate. Within a second, flames lick the ceiling and razes a massive area in front of her, a good quarter of the arena, before fizzling out a few moments later.

“That was not B-rank.” Alexandria says critically. “You lost control, didn’t you? Just tried to make it as big as possible?”

Leona glances away awkwardly. Her mother sighs. “Fine. I’ll show you guys a proper, perfected B-rank spell.” The second she turns away in preparation for her spell, Leona stares eagerly, eyes glittering in anticipation.

_Heh. Did she mess up the spell up on purpose?_

Alexandria lets out a deep breath, then thrusts out her arm, palm up. Magic gathers to her so fast that a fire ignites in her hand, but rather than be alarmed, she simply clenches her fist and draws her arm back to her, snuffing the fire out.

Then she thrusts out her arm once more, palm held out in front of her.

_“Miketsumiluni!”_

That snuffed fire serves as the spark for a truly incredible explosion. Unlike Leona’s spell, where her fire grew, Alexandria’s spell just brings fire to where there was none, the air flooding with horrifically intense flames. Yet, her control is so perfect that it does not burn any of us, despite our proximity to the flames. 

The flames fade a few seconds later. I stare, stunned — the fire was intense enough to dissolve the dirt and stone down to the wards, unsurprisingly enough — but above us, the steel has been melted, exposing the wards and stone above us.

“I had to exempt the wards from my spell…” Alexandria murmurs. “Or those would have been gone too. A B-ranked spell is so powerful that it melts through magic. That is what makes it a B-ranked spell.” 

“Void above…” Mari murmurs. “That spell…this is what those invading mages based their synergetic spell magic off of, isn’t it? Overwhelming fire and wind? It’s not as strong, but more widespread…”

_With that responsibility comes the potential to do great things. Good or bad..._

I understand just what those words mean, understand that the woman in front of me is a Spellweaver herself, a Spellweaver wielding a Spellweaver. And I understand that she gave me her warning, a chance to back out, because she hadn’t had one herself.

I just know, somehow.

Alexandria raises her blade and murmurs something under her breath, and the arena puts itself together. Steel stitches itself together, stone and dirt rise from nothing, and soon the arena is back to its normal state. It takes less than half a minute.

...How much qi would it have taken to match such a feat?

Such power. Such control. Such experience. I feel the gulf between our strength, and know that, surprised by my magical ability or not, this woman could have handled Mari and I both with nothing more than first-level spells, had she really wanted to try.

_So this is what the pinnacle of magic looks like...?_

“World miracle generator...” I murmur.

“Magic is a miracle.” Alexandria says simply. “And a magus is merely a conduit. Miracle generator, _gikaateru_.” She turns to me. “This is what you wish to wield. Are you sure this is the path you want to take?”

I think of my Ice. Of my own manipulations with Etheria, of my soul.

“Yes.”

We maintain eye contact for a few moments.

“Leona, go to your room. Take Mari, and begin teaching her about magical history and culture.” 

“Understood, Mother. What will you do?”

She glances at me. “Tomorrow, Academy classes resume. Yuki will be a guest of our family. I have nineteen hours, then, to turn you into someone befitting of the status. Pick up your wand.”

…

“That wand is acceptable, but it doesn’t fully suit you. Leona got that for you, didn’t she?”

“Yes. It isn’t good? I feel a strong connection.”

“Because of your ice. But both the composition and structure does not suit you. You do not need a wand. You need a staff, and a sword. Your qi is already suited for rapid, precise casting. What you need now is scale and power. As for the composition, cyrolite is an excellent metal for you, but you don’t need any material at all but the Ice you already wield.”

“I understand. Where would we get these?”

She grins, eerily reminiscent of Leona. “You shall learn to make it.”

...

Soon enough, I wield a pair of beautiful, simple weapons crafted out of my Ice.

“They are not ready, yet. You can manipulate your life energy, surely?”

“...Yes.”

“Good. You have the form and feel of these weapons down now, right? Recraft them, but layer life energy into the construction.”

...

When I’m done, I’m more than a bit tired, but I possess two weapons that feel like Home in my hands, and I understand why Alexandria had forced me to change.

“The staff is for general usage, and especially for large-scale manipulation. The sword is to be used in battle. Do not use these weapons in front of other magi unless you intend to kill them.”

“It would raise rather a few too many inconvenient questions, wouldn’t it?”

“Precisely. Also, you should name your weapons.”

“Huh? Why?”

“It will increase your connection to them. That kind of thing is important to magic.”

“Huh…I see.”

“Anyways, I trust your competency with a blade, so let us see your ability to wield your staff.”

...

“Acceptable. I shall practice these skills with you regularly. You would do well to continue working on them in the meantime.”

I gulp, standing on unsteady legs.

“Now come! I shall teach you about the formal art of dueling. It is how many altercations are decided between nobles. You will need to know the basic forms and rulesets.”

...

“How much have you learned about magical culture?”

“Little. Not enough to properly blend in.”

“That will change.”

...

“So, why exactly am I going to the Academy?”

“A few reasons. First and foremost, there is a very irritating fly buzzing around my daughter. You’ll know it when you see them. I want you to swat it.”

“Lethal or non-lethal?”

“Non-lethal.” She doesn’t seem surprised by my clarification. “Secondly, consider this a test of your ability to infiltrate the magi and blend in.”

“Okay.”

“Thirdly, your presence is a bit of political maneuvering on my end. You need do nothing except for what I said before.”

I nod.

“And, lastly, there’s not much else for you to do in the interim.” Alexandria shrugs. “We’re gathering some of the local Resistance leaders for a meeting, but many of them are away. We should have them in by the end of the week.”

“Got it. I’m a bit surprised, but I don’t think I mind much. After the first few days, I had expected to continue to make more progress towards the mission.”

She smiles. “You’ve not lived through a true war yet, have you? Most of it is just waiting around and getting to where you need to be. I daresay you’ll have some time before we begin proper combat. Enjoy the respite while you can and learn as much as possible, because I’m afraid you’ll have little time for it after.”

…

“Light has such a profound effect on us that even the time of day and direct sunlight are sufficient to empower our casts and make it easier to manipulate magic.”

“...what?”

“There are three waxing periods. Noon is the weakest of them, providing only a light boost in power. Incidentally, Wind spells are at their strongest during this time. Sunrise is next, providing a slightly higher boost in power as well as being a time suited for Fire magic. Sunset is our greatest period, like a flame blazing before it dies out, and Earth magic is strongest there.”

“Why Earth?”

“The Sun dips below the horizon, into the ground. It reeks of death, of ending, of being returned to the dirt and ashes from where we have come. That’s one explanation, at least. We don’t know for certain.” 

“I see. And I assume your powers wane during the night?” 

“Precisely. Most magi can still cast, but as it grows closer to midnight it grows harder and harder.”

“Just how much?”

“Scholars estimate the power increase of sunrise, noon, and sunset to be 10%, 5%, and 20% respectively. Night ranges from a decrease of 10% to 25%, depending on the time. Incidentally, Water Magic is the least affected during that time period.”

“I’m surprised it doesn’t get worse after midnight instead of simply bottoming out there. After all, are you magi not still deprived of light?”

“Yes, but…” Alexandria shrugs. “That’s magic.”

“That’s stupid.” 

She inclines her head. “Welcome to Arcacia.” 

…

“You’ve warmed up to me.” I eventually dare to say, surprised. 

She glances at me, but the coolness I’ve come to associate with the expression is all but gone.

“Why?”

“What will I leave behind when I pass, Yuki of Alune? I am Alexandria the Firestorm, the Mage Knight Captain of the Thirty-Second Regiment, Archmage, Spellweaver, and mentor to a dozen gifted apprentices. I’ve played critical roles in the lives of hundreds of people, saved a hundred times that number, dedicated dozens of years to protecting this country, and have made contributions to research that have forever changed the way we think about magic.”

“Yet, all of that…all of that I would trade to protect my daughter. My precocious, adventurous, rebellious daughter. But our paths split here. I cannot leave Arcacia to ruin. Thirty million lives hang in the balance, and I cannot be so selfish as to make that trade. That…that is my path.” 

“But you can, Yuki. You can protect her. You _will_. For that, you have my gratitude.”

_Is this…is this what it’s like to…_

“I understand.” I say quietly. “I will protect her.”

Because even if I don’t know what being part of a family is like, I can at least understand the deep desire to protect someone you love.

…

**We meet again.**

_Well met…is your true name Spellweaver? Or…taragikaateru?_

**Neither. It is merely the name I have been given. Such is my existence as a weapon.**

_I understand. Then, what would you prefer I call you?_

**I’ve taken a liking to the naming system your kind uses. Call me...Aphelion.**

I blink. That’s a word I’m not familiar with in the slightest. I’ll have to look it up later, maybe. 

_As you wish, then…Aphelion._

**Now, I understand that you have more questions for me?**

_Just how old are you?_

**Approximately three thousand years.**

The sword casually throws out an absolutely insane length of time.

_Three thousand—? Suffering no degradation at all? Just what kind of sword are you!?_

**A very good one.**

I detect a faint tone of amusement. 

_I…just how were you created, to be this powerful? And…what exactly are the powers you wield? You’re evidently different from a normal sword, but…how?_

**I was not created for magic. Do you understand why?**

_According to accepted magical theory, magic has existed in its current form for five hundred years. Or, rather, it was harnessed by a human intentionally for the first time, right? If you were three thousand years old, you couldn’t possibly have been created for that purpose. Unless the history was wrong, of course, but that’s a discrepancy of two thousand five hundred years._

**Precisely so. I was made to wield energy in general. I have two primary powers — attract, and repel.**

_Does that lend itself to an ability to empower, as well? If you were to repel a projectile away from you…_

**Yes. My abilities have evolved since my conception. I can absorb most simple magical attacks, weaken even complex ones, and empower magic cast from me.**

For the first time, I’m really able to appreciate the nuances of a living, sentient magical sword. 

_You absorbed Mari’s qi-based lightning, didn’t you?_

**They are the same to me.**

I hesitate at the certainty in Aphelion’s telepathic voice.

_Do you know the secrets that the magi wonder about? That us humans do?_

**I do not understand why you humans would think they were different at all.**

_Magic can do things that are beyond the reach of qi. Some of the magic I’ve seen is far too…pure for qi. Chakra excels at elemental manipulation, and little else._

**Power is power.**

What does that mean? 

**I could not say.**

The sword intrudes on my non-projected thoughts without the slightest bit of remorse. I don’t mind, though. I’d been planning on voicing that thought anyways. 

But…he couldn’t say? Can’t? Won’t? Does he lack the knowledge to, or the method to explain it? Is it a deep secret that I can’t learn?

**Magic is magic. Chakra is chakra. Yet, they are the same.**

I puzzle over the words. What do they mean? The concept is very simple, but they represent an impossibility. How can magic and qi be different, but the same? What does that mean? They can only be one.

What if it isn’t literal, though? What if…they’re the same, except in that one aspect?

**Yes.**

In that case…that difference, the reason why magic is different…why can magic do some things that qi can’t—?

_“Magic is a miracle.” Alexandria says simply. “And a magus is merely a conduit. Miracle generator, gikaateru.”_

That’s it!

The reason why…the reason why magic can do things that qi can’t…

_“Light has such a profound effect on us that even the time of day and direct sunlight are sufficient to empower our casts and make it easier to manipulate magic.”_

It’s because of intent. 

I knew this already, didn’t I? I knew this. The first hint was with my Ice. I knew Leona didn’t believe in my Ice the way I did. I recognized that perceived value was likely the reason magi couldn’t use common crystals as focusing gems. Even magi understand it — according to Alexandria, this concept is called the Principle of Magical Value. 

Magi can cast miracles because they’ve been raised their entire lives knowing that they have the abilities to make miracles. They’re empowered by light because they revere it, they revere magic. Magi can detect my usages of Etheria because they’re an aspect of the very thing they revere. Light, magic, life. 

Godsdamn it. 

_And I, who has never once thought of magic as a miracle, will never be able to cast true magic._

No wonder more ninja don’t become magi. Fuck the ritual — I doubt it truly exists. If you learned a scientific approach to the world, learned of magic as a fantasy…you can’t be a magus. You can’t make yourself believe in something you know to be false. 

Even now that I’ve seen it firsthand, know of the miracles it can create…I can never make any myself. All I can do...

**You seem to understand now, Cold One.**

I can cast Ice magic. But I’ll never be able to create a miracle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done. Next chapter is a quick peek at some girls we've left behind before we jump right into the Academy Arc. 
> 
> To clarify:  
> Yuki can cast Ice Magic.  
> Yuki can, on a very amateurish level, sense and wield magic.  
> Yuki can't cast any other type of Magic now.  
> Yuki *might* be able to train himself to use other types of magic, but it will take him a long time.  
> Yuki will definitely not be able to cast any 'pure' magic because of his current mindset regarding magic, which includes things like telepathy, etc. Incidentally, this does not hold true in certain alternate side-stories...  
> Yuki can use Ice Magic to cast abilities he already knows how to do, using mana instead of qi.  
> Yuki can only cast magic in Arcacia since there's not too much ambient mana outside of it. 
> 
> In other words, he's not much stronger now than he was at the beginning of this arc, and said power boost only applies in Arcacia. For now.


	101. (4.2.5) False Dichotomy, Closing

#  **4.2.5 Spellborne — Book 2**

##  **False Dichotomy, Closing (Sayaka’s POV)**

“...What’s wrong?” I ask as Setsuna flinches. I’m holding her in my arms, carrying her as we fly high in the air. 

“The communication scroll!” She shouts over the sound of the roaring wind. I land in a nearby forest clearing, then fumble at the holster at my hip. 

“We haven’t gotten a message yet.” I say, as she takes it and turns it over, eyes roaming over the seals. “So—”

“It broke.” Her head snaps up, looking past me towards the border that we’ve left far behind. “From their side, not ours.” 

I grimace, not willing to think about that. Of what that might mean for my friends. 

“All the more reason to get back fast, then. Or else...”

She bites her lip, but nods.

_ Or else all the people we left behind will die for nothing.  _

  
  



	102. (4.3.1) Sunset, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been looking forward to this arc for a while. Why, you ask?
> 
> Because it unlocks a TON of my side-stories for more updates! LET THE RAIN BEGIN.

#  **4.3.1 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Sunset, Part One**

“So how does this work?” I ask, Alexandria and Leona on either side of me as we navigate through the base, heading upwards. 

“We’re a noble family, so we have a special artifact called the Warp Matrix that allows us to teleport directly there.” Leona says cheerfully as we walk up a long flight of stairs, “It’s pretty neat. You’ll have to be sure to look appropriately impressed.” 

“I will.” I say dryly.

“You will be.” Alexandria says simply. “The Sunset Academy of Magic is one of the most prestigious facilities of education in all of Arcacia. I can guarantee that it is more grand than any other facility in your hometown.” 

“Us ninja do prefer functional over ornate.” I retort. 

She smirks. “You’re going to hate every step you take, then.”

I shake my head. “How deep are you guys into the school year?”

“We’re coming off of Winter Session, so…the third trimester’s just begun. And I’m in my last year of education. It’s why you can’t just transfer in. Transfers aren’t especially rare, but it’s late and you aren’t a prodigy. We don’t want you to stand out more than you already will.” 

“…You mean more than I already will as a special guest of the Dawn estate?”

“That name gives you a certain level of protection.” Leona disagrees. “We aren’t especially rich, nor especially old…but mother has a certain reputation. People will, for the most part, leave you alone.”

I nod. “So all I have to do is avoid stirring up trouble.”

“Somehow I doubt you’ll be able to.” Leona says, a frown on her face.

“That boy is still giving you trouble, daughter?” Alexandria asks neutrally?

_The fly, I assume?_

“A bit.” She mutters. “Him and his stupid magic.” 

“Someone’s stronger than you at the school?” I ask, interested.

“Stronger?” She scoffs angrily. “No. He just has a stupid, dumb Clairvoyance.” 

“Interesting…” I murmur.

“I’d get in a lot of trouble if I did anything to him, though.” Leona growls under her breath. “Especially after I broke an expensive vase on his face.”

I blink.

“Do you want me to duel him?” I ask. 

She yelps. “No! I mean…he’s an asshole, but…I don’t want you fighting all of my battles for me, okay?”

“Fine." I glance at the elder magus. "So I am to follow Leona around, serving as her servant, correct?” 

“Of a sort.” Alexandria nods. “I want to set some rumors that you are long-lost family. A bastard child abandoned for his inability to use magic, but being reabsorbed once we found out you were capable.” 

“Would that not hurt the family’s reputation?” I ask curiously.

“Very little.” Alexandria says matter-of-factly. “No one would dare say anything to me regarding the manner, nor turn me from an opportunity I might have otherwise have. People…struggle to say no to me.” 

I snort. “I can imagine.”

Alexandria’s raw power is immense. I bet she’s made an example out of someone, too. Perhaps multiple someones.

“Anyways, I have no problems with this, so long as Leona guides me around.” 

“Will do…Mistress.” I say, smirking slightly. She winces. 

“Ugh. I regret this already…we can’t just go with the family option?”

“We’re doing both.” I remind her. “The more layers my past has, the better. Of your students, the ones who go past the first layer will be gossipers and those out to hurt you. The former will be romantics, and will find the idea equally scandalous and attractive. The latter will see a method in which to hurt you, and will be quite disappointed.” 

She sighs. “Well, at least I can call you by a strange name, too…Aspen.” 

I shake my head, suppressing a smile. Leona had been...quite invested in being able to select my name. I’m unsure as to the significance of the word, but her mother seemed to find it mildly amusing, at least.

“It doesn’t really matter what you call me, Mistress.” I bow deeply. “I shall acquiesce to your every request.”

She cringes. “Ugh, whatever. We’re almost at the teleportation point.”

I’ve been dressed in a relatively formal butler’s suit, all black and trimmed with white. Leona’s clothed in a school uniform, reminiscent of her Mage Knight attire in many ways but far plainer. Her badge still rests on her bosom, though. 

Alexandria stops us, then takes both of our hands. The world spins, then we abruptly reappear in the room that we used to access the base in our first day of infiltration. On the Lord’s desk rests a simple crystal ball, a purple cushion underneath it. This must be the Warp Matrix. 

“This isn’t inside the base anymore, is it?” I ask curiously.

“Right now it isn’t.” Leona says cheerfully. “Or our teleportation would bounce off the wards and walls and we’d die.” 

“I see.” I say. “So you open and close the protections whenever someone leaves.” 

_That must have been what happened to our communication scroll...I assume, at least. The great distance might have also been a factor, but that’s Setsuna’s specialty, not mine._

“Yep!”

“And this thing here…is the special artifact you guys mentioned earlier.”

“Yep!”

“Right. So…how do we do this, then?”

“First of all…” Leona spins on her heel. “You’re coming with us, Mother? It’s been many years since you’ve escorted me to school…er, for reasons unrelated to disciplinary ones…and I haven’t done anything! Recently!” 

“…Besides drugging a mage-knight trainee.” Alexandria inserts dryly. 

“Besides drugging one of— wait, that’s old news!” Leona catches herself, protesting. 

“I’m sure you’ll have no problems getting into trouble.” I note with a small smile on my lips. The blonde magus pouts, but there’s a mischievous glint in her eyes, too. 

“…Well, I guess we’re ready then. Put your hand on the Warp Matrix.”

“Got it.” I do as I’m told, and soon all three of our hands are resting on the Warp Matrix. Alexandria’s eyes close, power beginning to swirl around her. Between the gaps of our fingers, I can see a brief, blurry image shimmer inside the crystal.

“Close your eyes until we land, Yuki.” She instructs. _“Mazuateru!”_

The world twists underneath my feet, then reasserts itself. It’s an impossible sensation to describe, everything coming and going in an instant. Our surroundings have changed, our hands still held out — I pull my hand away, returning to a more normal position, and observe. 

We’ve landed on some sort of large marble pedestal, perhaps fifty meters in all directions by my estimate. Runes spiral in concentric circles along the ground, undamaged despite constantly being stepped on. A Warp Matrix rests in the middle — apparently, it’s how many students get home.

In the far distance is a massive walled area that rises many meters into the air, the first layer of defense for the Academy. To either side of us rests a forest. It is not too thick, leaving plenty of visibility — presumably for the safety of the students.

Around us are a dozen curious students. Some of them seem to have just teleported in themselves, while others linger with roving eyes, looking for a friend. Most have glanced in our direction, pausing both upon the older woman next to me…and myself. 

“Servant.” Alexandria says simply, “Guard Leona with your life, follow her commands, and — should anyone threaten your duties, you have permission to kill them.” Her voice isn’t loud, but it carries to a few of the students, who only grow more interested.

_That’s the game you’re playing? I understand._

Wordlessly, I bow deeply. “As you command, Moth — Mistress.” 

Approval gleams in her eyes. Then, silently, she vanishes without a trace. 

_Will this kind of thing really be enough? They assure me it will, but…_

“Leona!” A bizarrely pink-haired girl comes up to us, eyes glittering with excitement. 

“Selena!” The shorter magus greets, the two briefly embracing each other. 

_One of her two friends. She matches Leona’s description well enough...hm, perhaps that half-assed plan I’d thought up might work here after all._

“And who might this be?” Selena asks, her eyes roving up and down my figure. I return the favor—

She’s armed with a wand at her holster, a sapphire. Water, then? Perhaps she’s a healer. She’s comfortably fit, but not particularly athletic, so Leona could crush her in any physical competition. Her magic feels...average, if we assume Leona’s to be on the upper end of the spectrum for her peers.

“This is my servant.” She says, grinning cheerfully.

“Well met, Lady Selena.” I bow deeply. “I am called Aspen, humble servant to the Dawn family, and in particular to my Mistress, Lady Leona.”

“Charmed. I am called Selena, second daughter of the Tsuzera family. Well met, Servant Aspen.” She says brightly, offering her hand to me. I glance at the outstretched limb, feigning confusion, then at Leona.

“She’s offering for you to kiss her.” Leona whispers, exasperated.

_She seems vaguely interested, or at least not repulsed. If that’s the case...thanks for the ambiguous wording, Leona._

I act, a single stride putting me in reach of her hand, and I grasp it. Rather than lean down to kiss it, though, I gently but firmly pull her closer, my free hand pressing against the small of her back once she gets close enough, then dipping, forcing her to bend backwards slightly as I hold her up—

She gasps as my face comes to within a few centimeters of hers, our lips perilously close. A quick series of emotions flit through her unguarded face — surprise, attraction, acceptance — then she closes her eyes and purses her lips slightly.

Sensing Leona behind me, I move with her magic as it firmly pulls me away. I ensure that Selena is pulled up with me so that she doesn’t fall, and skid backwards, still maintaining my balance and with a small smile on my face.

“Servant!” Leona squawks indignantly. “On the hand! Not the lips!”

“My sincerest apologies.” I offer, the tiniest of smirks coming out as Selena blinks, surprised by Leona’s interference. “I did not mean to infringe on your honor so. Please, tell me if there is any way this worthless servant can service you to make up for my thoughtless actions.”

“Service me?” Selena asks thoughtfully, a glint of interest in her eyes. “I think I may be able to come up with something...”

“Don’t encourage my lecherous servant.” Leona hisses.

“Whatever could you mean, my Mistress?” I ask innocently. “She was surely thinking merely of some...hard, exhausting physical labor?” 

“A bit of wand polishing?” Selena returns, eyes sparkling.

“Every wand requires consistent maintenance.” I agree sagely. “Under your careful instruction, Lady Selena, I’m sure that I could become quite adept at satisfying your every order.”

The pink-haired girl giggles, blushing slightly. “Hey, Leona, can I borrow him for a day or two? I like him.” 

“Absolutely not!” She blurts out. “You — he’s mine!”

“Perhaps Lady Leona is also interested in some wand polishing?” Selena grins, winking suggestively at me.

“Ew! Absolutely not!” The blonde magus sputters. “He’s my — my servant!”

Selena turns to me, smiling happily. “Please, servant, let us dispense with the formalities, at least so long as we are surrounded by friends. Call me Selena.”

_Checkmate._

“As you command, Selena.” I reply lightly. “Should you wish, you may call me Aspen, as well.”

“Aspen...?” She tastes the name and finds it acceptable. “Then I shall. Come now, Leona, Aspen. Let us head to class before we are late.” They start walking down the stone path. 

“Am I attending class, Mistress?” I ask, surprised.

“Of course.” She says crossly. “Otherwise you’ll find some other girl to service.”

“But of course. Your needs come before mine, Lady Leona.” I grin slyly. “I’ll always take care of you first.” 

“What’s this I hear about a guy moving in on my girlfriend?” A male voice says from behind us.

“Qiratisa...” Leona sighs heavily, “Stop that.” Despite her words, there’s still a small smile on her face as an orange-haired boy comes up behind her, lightly slapping her on the shoulder.

_And here’s the other one._

“Yo, Leo, Selly.” He grins. 

“Good morning...Qiratisa.” The latter replies, smirking. He groans.

“Stop calling me that!” He turns to me. “So you must be the guy trying to move in on my territory.”

I raise an eyebrow, utterly unintimidated. “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean, good sir. But Leona might.”

He turns around in time for Leona’s steel-tipped boot to connect with his left shin.

“I’m not dating you, idiot!” She shouts as the boy hops around, holding his limb and cursing.

“Oh, you’re her servant? Nice to meet’cha. I’m Robin Qiratisa. Just call me Robin.” He stops faking injury and sketches a mocking salute. “Well met.”

I smile slightly. 

“Charmed. I am called Aspen, and my duty is to serve Lady Leona in any service she requires.” I pause. “Which includes services such as wand polishing, mana restoration, and—“

Leona stomps over and kicks me extra hard. I wince.

“Stop that!” She glares at me, cheeks glowing, then turns her anger to Selena, who can’t seem to stop laughing.

“You aren’t half-bad.” Robin murmurs to me thoughtfully as Leona chases her friend around, wand spitting a bunch of clear bolts.

“I’d like to think so.” I agree blankly. “Well met, Robin Qiratisa.”

“Well met, ‘Servant’ Aspen.” He grins, before joining in the makeshift duel, casting a weak wind spell towards the two that threatens to expose their undergarments to all the students walking down the path.

I sigh, amused, as the two turn on him. 

_All three of them are quite lively, huh? Is this what school could have been like? Should have been like?_

_...More importantly, it seems that Robin’s on to me. Excellent._

...

“Oh, so that’s how it is?” Robin asks cheerfully. 

“Yes.” I confirm. “I will be shadowing Lady Leona in all her classes, and my purpose shall be to protect her from harm.”

“How strange...” Selena murmurs. “Leona’s the last student who needs protection.” They glance at the badge pinned to her clothing. The others both have single suns on their chests, marking them as Novices. 

“Whether or not she is capable of it...the point is that she should not need to.” 

“I didn’t think servants would be allowed in class.” Selena says thoughtfully. “Or everyone would have one. Well, everyone with the money.” 

“They’re not.” Leona says cheerfully. “But Mother requested.”

They shiver. 

“Oh. Well…in that case…” 

“Is Leona’s mother really so strong?” I ask, feigning ignorance. 

They turn to me, surprised.

“How can’t you know? Can’t you feel it?” Robin shivers. “She’s strong. Super duper strong.” 

“Leona’s mother is a Spellweaver.” Selena explains — she seems to have picked up on the fact that I’m not noble-raised like the rest of them. 

“Is that rare?” I ask innocently. 

_Channel that country bumpkin of yours! I mean, technically—_

“In the Capital, not so much…” Leona transitions into a lecturing tone. “Since it’s such a neat place, it’s really popular to live there. But only really important people can live there, mostly. My Mother, as an Archmage and Spellweaver, definitely qualifies, but she chooses not to. She likes the countryside more, and she prefers being close to the border in case of war.” 

Huh. That’s fascinating. I’d wondered before if Leona was simply a one-of-a-kind genius prodigy, but if the greatest talent moves to the capital…

But these magician rankings are static, aren’t they? Stable. They’re objective qualifiers. So she’s still well beyond the ordinary, if your given Academy student is a Novice.

“How interesting.” I say inanely. Leona smiles, amused. 

“You have much to learn, my servant.” She gestures in front of us. “Thankfully…” She pauses, a mischievous smile on her face, “You’ve come to the right place.” 

Robin and Selena both flash her a thumbs down, booing. 

“Whatever.” She pouts. “We’re just about here. We just have to step through the wards.” 

I nod. We’re just outside the massive stone walls, now, and the entrance is a large gate of sorts. In front of us, a translucent shimmer of magic hovers. 

“I believe Mother has called in ahead of time to inform the Academy of our presence.” Leona says. “So you can just step inside.” Robin and Selena move through the ward effortlessly, and the blonde follows. 

Cautiously, I press a hand against the ward barrier. The magic is warm to the touch, but doesn’t restrict me in any way. Shrugging, I enter the ward proper and take my first step into the Sunset Academy of Magic. 

“It sure is…extravagant in here.” I murmur, looking around. The finest architecture I’ve ever seen — quartz, marble, elaborate water fountains, glittering buildings made of materials I don’t even recognize, a massive set of sporting fields…

“Welcome to the Sunset Academy.” Leona says smugly. “And now you know why I still hang around this place.”

“For her friends.” Robin says cheerfully.

“For me.” Selena disagrees or perhaps agrees, smirking. 

“Fascinating.” I murmur, still absorbing the strange sights as we begin walking down the stone path towards one of the central buildings. “Is...is that a Silver Wolf over there?”

“Yep.”

“...And is that person riding it?”

“Yep.” Leona says gleefully. “I’ve done it before. Pretty neat. You can subjugate them with magic and they’ll be absolutely loyal to you.” 

I blink, thinking about Mari’s static aura. “Is that a spell?”

“Eh, sort of.”

“Cool.”

“It’s hard, though.” Selena complains good-naturedly. “I don’t have strong enough magic to get one to listen.”

“That’s why you beat it up first like I did.” Robin boasts.

“You had to injure it so severely that you couldn’t do anything with it after.” Leona says dryly. 

“But I tamed it.” He says cheerily. “And Selena got a C, and I got an S for unorthodox thinking.”

“That, and the teacher loves you.” Leona points out. 

“Says the teacher’s pet herself.” He retorts. 

“The Divination teacher hates me. And so do a couple others!”

“Yeah, but—“

I tune them out. “Are they always like this?” I whisper to Selena.

“Pretty much.” She whispers back, drawing away slightly to talk to me without them noticing. 

“I’m glad.” I say sincerely. “I had been worried about my Mistress making friends. I’m glad to say that it seems that she has found some good ones.”

“Oh?” The pinkette asks, curious. “You’ve only known us for...what, half an hour? What makes you so sure?”

I smile.

“My mistress...is an excellent judge of character.”

She smiles, seeming to agree with me. “By the way, you aren’t a real magus, are you?” 

I hum. “What makes you say that?”

“Just a guess.” She returns my smile, clearly curious. “You have a wand, but no badge. You seem to be of schooling age, but you’re a butler. You’re familiar with some aspects of our lives, but woefully ignorant in others. You aren’t a magus, but...hm...are you from the nearby peasant village? Ember, isn’t it?”

“I cannot comment on matters that my Mistress has forbidden me to speak of.” 

“Aw...” She pouts, then grins. “Not even with a little incentive?” She bends forward slightly, emphasizing her bust.

_It is a nice bust._

“How serious are you?” I ask, stepping forward. One hand slips up to cup her cheek, and another alights on her hip. Her breath stutters as I lean forward myself, a carefully-crafted mask on my face.

_I’ve learned a lot in my time with Sayaka. Never thought this would really matter, but…_

“I...um...”

I smile. “Don’t worry. I’m not truly serious.” I release her and lean back, satisfied. “I was just curious myself.”

_Just taking your measure, that’s all. And now I know. Sayaka wouldn’t have hesitated._

“I…I see.” She averts her gaze. “I wasn’t truly serious either, you know.” 

I smirk at the double meaning that she doesn’t understand, then duck as a bolt goes flying over my head. 

“Servant! Stop that!” 

“My apologies, Mistress.” I bow mockingly. 

“You always apologize.” She pouts. “But you keep going off and trying to flirt with girls when you should be protecting me!” 

“First of all,” I hold up a finger, “I’ve only tried to flirt with one girl. And that was mostly a joke.” 

“Mostly?” Selena blushes. 

“Second of all,” I point at her, “There aren’t any threats in the immediate area, anyways. Unless you’re planning on letting Robin try flirting with you again.”

“Ew.” The people in question say simultaneously, before Leona turns on the orange-haired mage. “Hey, wait, what the fuck—“

“What do you mean!? You did it too!” 

“You’re an interesting contradiction of your own.” I mutter to the pink-haired girl. You naturally fall into a quiet, observing role, the same as I, yet you’re cheerfully and shamelessly flirtatious nonetheless. You don’t strike me as experienced in the slightest, and you don’t appear to be particularly interested in an experience, so…why, exactly, are you like this?”

She stares at me curiously for a while longer, then abruptly curtsies. “It would appear that we are both enigmas.” 

I smile politely. “So it would seem.” 

_One of us more than the other, I imagine._

She cocks her head. “You’re surprisingly unconcerned.” 

“My Mistress can take care of herself.” I assert. “I am here for…insurance, that’s all. And to learn, perhaps. As you have pointed out, I’m not a...can you keep a secret?” I ask, lowering my voice further.

She nods quickly.

“I am not a proper magus. I wasn’t raised the same way as you. But I was noble-born, even if not noble-raised.” I glance around briefly. “I didn’t show magical potential, so I was abandoned as a disgrace. As it turns out, though, the ritual had been ran incorrectly.”

“How horrid. That ritual is one of the most basic ones there are.”

“I hear that when my Mother found out, she...did not leave them in a state to ever perform rituals again.”

“I see.” Selena says thoughtfully. “Thank you for trusting me with such a secret.”

_Well, I’d told her for the purpose of spreading said rumor, actually. I’m a little worried that she might actually keep my secret._

“In exchange, I shall dispel one of my own mysteries. Ask and I shall answer.” 

I stare at her thoughtfully, contemplating her offer.

“What size is your chest?” I settle on.

“...Wha?”

I smirk slightly at her dumbfounded expression. A dozen emotions flit across her face.

“You...are you just trying to be mysterious?!” She hisses out, face flaming.

“Not particularly.” I reply blithely. “But you said you would be willing to answer any question, basically. So I picked what I was most curious about at the moment.”

Eyes averted, she mutters a measurement. I glance at her chest, then back at her accusingly.

Blushing harder, she mutters another, larger measurement.

“Now that I can believe.”

“Satisfied?” She mumbles, still embarrassed. 

“Oh yes.” I reply cheerfully. “That answered many questions.”

She wields her femininity as a crude offensive weapon, using it to hide her shy personality. That’s why she can’t handle it when I take control away, when I approach her with sheer indifferent confidence. Confidence, not arrogance. I suspect the latter would provoke a very different reaction entirely. I’ve toed the line without crossing over, it seems.

“Did it?” She murmurs, sounding rather confused.

I smile, then frown.

“Lady Leona. We’ve been walking down this path for a while, haven’t we?” 

“Huh?” The magus asks, blinking. “Um, yeah, I guess so — oh. That asshole.” 

Selena’s, surprisingly, a bit faster on the draw—

_“Keazusa!”_

The world around us warps, then shatters, revealing that we’ve walked outside of the school entirely — apparently having been going the wrong way.

“What the fuck?” Robin asks eloquently.

All the students around us have disappeared, leaving only the four of us standing around, confused. 

“Someone’s assaulted us, Mistress.” I say quietly. “How would you like to proceed?”

“Assaulted?” The orange-haired male asks, surprised. 

“What else would you call a mental attack upon the four of us, three who are of noble stature, clearly intended for malicious, if petty, purposes? We are now late for class.”

“Fuck.” Leona mutters. “Come on, guys. We need to go.”

Various reinforcement magics spring into place. Leona casts a spell upon me that seems to strengthen my limbs directly, letting me easily keep up with them as we begin darting back to campus.

“My sincerest apologies, Lady Leona, Lady Selena, Lord Robin. It would appear that I’ve been lax in my duties.”

Underneath my thinly calm veneer, though, I’m pissed. I hadn’t been aware that there was a type of magic that could do something like this. 

“It wasn’t quite a mental attack, Servant.” Leona says calmly, clearly suppressing a bit of annoyance. “And the fault lies with me. I should have told you about this earlier.”

“You know who assaulted you, don’t you?” I ask, going over the moment we realized that we were trapped in an illusion.

“Lucian Ketami. He possesses a Clairvoyance that allows him to make perfect illusions.” 

_This. This is the fly I’ve come to swat._

“How do you counter it?” I ask. 

She smiles grimly. “Disrupting his concentration. Incidentally, that’s why I threw that vase at his head.”

“I see.” I murmur, an idea forming in my head. “Why did we not bump into anyone else?”

“I’m sure they recognized that we were under an illusion.” Leona says bitterly. “They just didn’t want to help us out and get in trouble with Lucian.” 

“I see.” 

_So, in matters involving this illusionist…I should consider the entire student body to be an enemy._

“This Lucian. How much of a problem would I stir up if I beat him around a little?”

“Servant!” Leona says sharply. “No joking about hurting my classmates in front of other classmates.”

_She knows full well that isn’t a joke, however._

“You might find that hard.” Selena murmurs. “Without your own magic, it’s really hard to counter his.”

We slip through the wards once more, racing towards the central building.

“Perhaps.” I agree. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll find I have some tricks of my own. I can hardly protect Mistress Leona if I were too weak to defeat anyone.” 

“Would you mind dueling me, then?” The pinkette asks brightly, looking a bit winded. “Not now, of course. But later. I’m curious about how you fight, Aspen.” 

Next to me, Leona snickers.

“Sure.” I say, blank-faced, then skid to a stop. 

“…I thought so.” 

My hands snap out, catching Leona as she abruptly turns in the other direction. 

“Hwa?!”

No time to be subtle.

“Snap out of it.” I slap her lightly across the face.

“Gah!” Her eyes unfocus, then refocus on my face. “Wha…What’s going on?”

“Another illusion. Can you snap your friends out of it?” 

“I… _Illusion Dispel! Illusion Dispel!”_

A surprisingly well-aimed pair of casts clips her two friends as they run at top speed, causing them to face-plant onto the ground. 

“You could sense it?” 

“Yes.” I murmur. “It’s subtle, but there’s a sense of wrongness. I can sense it. Now that I’m aware of what to look for, I won’t miss it twice.” 

“Good.” She says relieved. “That’ll really be helpful.” 

“I hate that guy so much.” Robin curses under his breath as he returns to us. 

“You and I both.” Leona mutters. 

“Make that three.” Selena adds, a scowl on her usually pleasant face.

“Seems like the trap has been sprung. The energy is dissipated.” I say calmly. 

“You can see his traps?” Robin asks, surprised.

“Aspen has a limited form of mage-sight.” Leona says quietly. “Don’t tell anyone. It’s a family secret.” 

“Ah. Got it.” 

“We’ve wasted enough time.” Leona mutters. “Let’s just…get to class…half an hour late. Fuck.”


	103. (4.3.2) Sunset, Part 2

#  **4.3.2 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Sunset, Part Two**

“Ah, Qiratisa. Tsuzera. Dawn. You’re late. _Again._ ”

There’s a smattering of giggles. 

“Apologies, Instructor.” Leona bows. “We were…held up by something.”

“It’s come to the point that I’ve run out of ways to punish you three. Just sit down. And who is your visitor?” 

“This is my servant. I believe you should have received some correspondence regarding his presence here?” 

“Hm…” The teacher, a stern-looking man that appears to be in his fifties, closes his eyes. I can sense a faint swirling of magic around his head. “So I have. Very well. We don’t have any extra seats at the moment, so I’ll leave you to take care of that. And see to whatever other needs he has.” 

I bow, silently, keeping my face blank, and take the opportunity to glance around. The classroom is far plainer than I might have imagined — the teacher stands on a raised, decently-sized stage, a wall of blackboards behind him. All the desks and chairs are wooden, the walls simple stone…

_It looked a lot different on the outside, that’s for sure._

“Follow me, Servant.” Leona murmurs, heading to her seat. Upon arriving next to the three empty desks, she drops a pencil onto her seat, nods approvingly, then picks it up and takes a seat.

_Checking for illusions, huh?_

Lazily, she pulls her wand out from her holster—

_…Wait. She — she’s definitely pulled her wand from that ‘subspace’ Alexandria’s talked about before. But she’s…she’s also pulled it from a holster. And it’s definitely the same wand, right? That doesn’t make any sense—_

“ _Desk._ ”

I sit as she begins extracting the rest of her supplies. 

“Now, before we were interrupted, we were reviewing advanced Magical Field Theory. Miss Dawn—“ 

“Magical Field Theory is the theory that a limited amount of external magic exists in any given area, and that spells concentrate this magic in the area of the cast rather than consuming the magic.” 

“Excellent. Now, let’s have a volunteer to demonstrate this…Miss Tsuzera. Please come up.”

Selena sighs, but obediently heads up to stand on the opposite side of the stage.

“Who remembers the incantation for a simple dueling ward?” 

A boy in the front raises his hand. “ _Keasaka.”_

“Good. Perform it.” 

Concentrating, I can feel the magus visibly bring magic to them before releasing it in a wave alongside the incantation. A blue, hazy shimmer forms a prism around the two on the stage before fading.

“Barely adequate, but it shall suffice. Why did I have him cast a dueling ward?”

The class is silent. Leona rolls her eyes. 

“Because a dueling ward restricts the passage of magic. To demonstrate Magical Field Theory, cutting off the flow of magic around you to maximize the visibility of the demonstrated concept is the first thing you should do.”

“Excellent.” He says, a tinge of warmth slipping into his voice. “Now, Miss Tsuzera. What is the highest level Water spell you can cast at least twice in a row?”

“Um…probably _Ralutsu._ ”

Leona slides her notebook to the left.

[ _Ralutsu_ : Big Water Pulse — D ranked spell.]

I nod gratefully.

“Good. Please fire it at me.”

_“Ralutsu!”_

The spell forms, a small circle of water vibrating around the tip of Selena’s outstretched wand before racing towards the instructor, expanding as it goes along. He silently counters, shielding his body. The spell bursts, water roaring against the shields, against the wards...

_Right, the dueling wards also block out conjured substances. I went over this with Alexandria._

Selena dispels her magic, the water vanishing in a wave.

“Not bad at all. Now, I’m going to absorb as much of the magic from the area as I can. Mister Qiratisa, where should I point my wand?”

“Where you should—? At the floor, since that’s where the magic was cast, right? So it’s focused there?”

“Correct.” 

As he speaks, magic visibly gathers around the tip of his wand. The hairs on my arm rise, my body quietly tensing.

“Now, Miss Tsuzera. Cast your spell again.”

The pinkette strains, her wand outstretched, and manages to get a ring going after a few seconds.

“That feels...very weak.” I murmur to Leona.

“She can’t gather the magic for it. The spell is suffocating.”

_“R-Ralutsu!”_

Instead of being cast at all, though, the water just falls off her wand.

“ _Magikaa_.”

The magic that the instructor has gathered ripples harmlessly off his wand, dissipating back into the space defined by the ward.

“You may lower your ward now. Miss Tsuzera, thank you for your demonstration. Return to your seat.” 

The ward dissolves, and the pinkette takes her seat next to me.

“As you all saw, once I had absorbed the magic within the area, Miss Tsuzera found it far harder to cast. Something else happened. What was it?”

“She couldn’t cast her spell.” A student answers. The instructor sighs. 

“Insufficient. Miss Dawn, clarify?”

“Upon realizing that it was harder than she thought it would be, she lost focus. This disrupted her cast and caused the half-formed spell to unravel entirely.”

Selena winces. 

“Better. Now, someone else answer why.” 

“Principle of Magical Intent?” 

“Which is? You, there in the front row.” 

“I-If a cast is disrupted due to a disruption of focus, the spell will unravel.” 

“Good. As a result of the Principle of Magical Intent, Miss Tsuzera lost the ability to cast her magic. She lost her focus because of _mana deprivation._ Thus, combining what we’ve gone over, we come to the Principle of Local Mana Deprivation: If there is an insufficient amount of mana in the area to cast a spell, all but the most skilled of users will be incapable of casting the spell.”

“When would this be useful? Er, not that I’m trying to say this isn’t useful, but…rather, how could this be applied?” A student behind us asks. 

“Good question.” The instructor responds. “Class, answer him. There are three obvious examples.” 

“When in combat against another magus, tricking them into thinking that there isn’t enough mana in the air would make them hesitate or make a mistake as they switch to drawing on their core?” 

“Good. What else?”

“You could use a localized ward to disable a magus from even wandless magic, by confining them to a small space and taking away all the ambient mana.” Selena suggests. “If you locked down their ability to utilize their internal magic through a drug or spell, they would be completely helpless.”

“Excellent. Lastly?”

A few guesses are thrown out, but immediately shot down. 

“Combat outside of Arcacia.” Leona answers. “Outside of Arcacia, the ambient mana rapidly falls the further you get from the border and alternative methods of saturating the air with mana must be utilized in order to easily cast magic without drawing directly on one’s stores.” 

“Very good, Miss Dawn.” The instructor nods. “And this is why combat outside our borders rarely occurs. Let us take the neighboring country of Lunaria as an example. If we were to invade them, our forces would suffer from the lack of the rich ambient mana that exists in Arcacia. But by that same coin, Lunaria is reluctant to invade us, where we can fight at our full power. In summation, the two countries are locked in a situation where no one really wants to be the aggressor, not on any kind of large scale.”

_If that’s true, I wonder why they’re invading us now?_

“Think on the ramifications of this. Next class, we shall be going over the most obvious method to cast with little accessible mana. Class dismissed.” 

...

“Welcome to Fire Elemental Training.” A redheaded woman idly twirls a wand in her hand on the stage. 

This classroom is like the other one, except a large glass screen covers one end. It faces one of the fields we’d passed by on our way in. This time, Selena sits on the opposite side of the classroom, whereas Leona, Robin, and I sit on the other.

“As everyone knows, today is demonstration day. Please head out in a calm and orderly fashion through the window.”

A shocked silence follows as she heads towards the long glass screen in question.

“I assume you all know basic reinforcement.” She taps the glass with her wand, and it vanishes.

“But, Instructor...it’s four stories up!”

“So?”

In the wake of a stunned classroom, Leona calmly brushes past me and makes her way to the new exit and vaults, flipping twice before landing easily on her feet.

I blink. She’d touched me with her magic as she’d walked past, and I can feel what seems to be a reinforcement spell within me, centered at my legs. 

“Thank you, Miss Dawn. Now, the rest?”

I step up. 

“Oh? Miss Dawn’s servant? Will you be following her too?”

I bow. “I shall.”

“And I!” Selena rushes to the front of the class, looking nervous but determined.

“Me too.” Robin says.

“Good.” She smiles. “Focus on your intent, your desire to be safe. On my mark...go.”

We jump. The ground comes up quickly, but I’ve made larger leaps before— 

We land without fuss. Selena looks a little surprised that she’s in one piece. 

“I’m...alive?”

“Yes, Lady Selena.” I say, a bit of amusement coloring my tone. “You may want to vacate the landing zone before you get stomped on, though.”

With a yelp, she flees, and we follow her as more people start reluctantly making the trip.

...

“Before we begin, I want you all to notice that no one, not even the most magically incompetent of you, was injured even slightly. Now, why is that?”

“Principle of Magical Intent.” Selena answers confidently. “We were scared of dying, so our intent to protect ourselves was very strong.”

“Excellent. This leads into something you should already know — the Principle of Subconscious Magical Intent. The fear of death is one of the strongest motivators there is. In situations where you anticipate mortal harm or death, your magic will be at its strongest.”

_So that exercise wasn’t as insane as it looked? Fascinating._

“Now. Let’s have some demonstrations, shall we? Split up into affinity groups.”

I hesitate, glancing at Leona for direction. She indicates that I should stay with her, and so we move into…a section occupied entirely by us and only us. Huh.

“Good. We’ll start with you guys. Low D-Tier students, A-M, walk up.”

Five kids do so.

“No E-tier?” I ask curiously to Leona.

She snickers. “It would be _humiliating_ to be a seventh-year student and be unable to cast at least a low D-tier spell, even in your opposing element.”

“Now, please demonstrate the Fire Wave spell, _Minaa._ ” 

_“Minaa!”_

Everyone seems capable of casting the fire wave, although some are clearly more polished than others. The flames crash into a stone wall facing away from the school buildings and immediately dissipates, a glimmering blue ward flickering into visibility. 

“Good. How about the Triple Fireball spell?”

They cast. One student’s spell fails, the third fireball fizzling off the tip of her wand. 

“Good. Some of you were better than others. Some were worse. You know who you are. Work to improve. These spells should be perfected prior to your graduation. Next, Low D-Tier students, N-Z!” 

Their examination goes about the same way. Selena is included in this category, and her spells are weak but consistent. 

_Based on the color schem of her uniform, — blue — she’s a Water magus. Fire’s not her forte, I imagine._

“High D-Tier students!”

Most of the students fall into this category — unsurprising. The lower section consisted almost entirely of Water magi, based on the uniforms. Most of the students here have yellow and green colors…Earth and Wind.

I glance around. So the other students…

“Low C-Tier students!” 

_And based off his clothing, Qiratisa is a Wind magus._

Robin stands out as one of the few non-Fire Magi in this category, and launches quite the impressive _Super Charge Beam._ Most of the Fire Magi fall into this category.

“Mid C-Tier students.”

The top Fire magi fall into this category, with the exception of a single Wind magus. A quartet of sweeping _Fire Pillars_ blaze through the grass, turning the dirt into slag. 

“Now, last, but certainly not least.” The instructor turns. “Miss Leona. You told me you thought yourself qualified for Mid B-Tier, didn’t you?”

“Yes, Instructor.”

“Show me.” She gestures to the field with her hand, a golden, intricate shield sprouting. “Your Mid B-Rank Spell.” 

Leona sheathes her wand. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve made the spell wandless, too…” The instructor says, disbelief in her voice.

“Oh, no. It’s just not the kind of magic you can cast with a wand.” Leona says sheepishly.

“Oh? Excellent. Pay attention, class. If my suspicions are correct, you’ll be allowed to see some genuine _Battle Magic_.” 

With a shimmer of magic, Leona’s mage-blade appears on her waist. She runs her hand reverently along the hilt for a moment, then draws it with a metallic scrape. The blade shines in the sunlight as Leona brings it to bear in front of her in a two-handed stance, clearly mentally preparing herself. 

My first warning that something is about to happen is the way the ground cracks underneath her, a wave of power rippling out from her. The air shifts subtly in a way that causes me to automatically tense—

The second warning is when flames flicker around her, spiraling around her body— 

“Original Spell…” Magic ripples across the area, drawn into her with a thunderclap, “ _Spiral Dragon Blade_!” 

She vaults, a good twenty meters vertically, orange tracers following her path and forming a hypnotic twister. For a moment, she hangs there, suspended in the air — then she draws her blade across her, igniting it with bright blue flames, and crashes down to the earth in a spiral of fire.

Fire roars out from her blade, a line of twisting, intense power that forms the head of a dragon. It crashes into the special wards the Instructor has put up and shreds through them without any obvious resistance, blazing a line across the dirt and into the walls of the very Academy themselves. There, the Fire meets resistance, blossoming along the bright ward walls. A screeching noise rings out as the two forces clash against each other, but the wards eventually do win out, and the flames dissipate. 

“Good heavens, Miss Leona. That was truly a treat, even if I’ll have to submit some paperwork explaining the damage done to the fields and walls.” The redheaded Fire Instructor blinks in disbelief. “Class, explain the difference between Battle Magic and normal magic.” 

“Battle Magic is designed to be casted rapidly and produce immediately useful results.” Robin answers quickly.

“Excellent, Mister Robin. Most spells that fall into the category of Battle Magic are E, D, and C ranked. Miss Leona here is quite special in that she seems to have invented her very own unique B-tier Battle Magic spell. It has a rather long cast time, as typical of most higher-ranked spells, but she devised a way to mask it through that impressive acrobatic maneuver. It made a five second cast time look like a quarter of that. For homework, write a short essay on how you might disguise your own long cast times. Dismissed.”

…

“Welcome to History. Now, we left off last class at…”

I wince, but do my best to listen in anyways. Next to me, Leona and Robin nap on their desks, not even pretending to pay attention. Selena idly draws flowers in her notebook. 

…

“Finally, it’s lunchtime!” Robin cheers.

“Thankfully…” Leona rubs her forehead. A red print has been left there from where her head was planted against the wooden desk. “I wanted to show Aspen the Garden. You guys wanna come with?”

“Eh…” The two glance at each other awkwardly. “Maybe…later?”

“Kay. Just let me know when you’re all ready to meet up.” 

The two depart quickly.

“What’s with them?” I ask bluntly, now that we’re alone.

“They don’t like it in there.” Leona smiles mischievously. “You’ll see why. Here, take this.”

Leona tosses a sandwich at me, which I deftly catch and begin eating. Alexandria had allowed me to eat during her lessons earlier, and I’d eaten breakfast afterwards, but all the work and information I’ve taken in has still left me unusually hungry.

“We grow a variety of both mundane and magical plants here for our Beginner and Advanced Flora classes, respectively. Students care for and learn how to raise the plants, some of which have quite unusual requirements…or temperaments.”

I wince. “Please don’t tell me you have sentient flora.” 

“…Well…”

“Right…anyways, where’s this Garden?”

“Hehe. It’s this way.” 

We walk around the paved stones. On the way there, we watch as a magus begins casting at the ground, healing the damage dealt to the grass and dirt that Leona caused. It seems very slow-going, though.

“Why is he struggling so much?” I ask curiously.

“My spell, Spiral Dragon Blade, has anti-magic properties. So he’s going to struggle to repair that damage with magic of his own. It’ll wear off eventually, though.”

“Really?” I blink. “How exactly did you manage that?”

She smiles. “I’ll show you later. In the meantime, I will say that those properties are typical of all B-ranked and above magic. In fact, simply infusing a D-ranked spell with anti-magic properties is sufficient to turn it into a B-ranked spell, although it will be a low one. My spell was something like high C without, and mid B with it.”

“What do those rankings mean?”

“Well, E-rank is simple. They’re always straightforward effects. If you shoot a fireball at someone, it will do exactly what it looks like it will, what you would imagine. D-rank spells are usually like E rank spells, but with a wider scope. So that _Minaa_ spell, Fire Wave — that’s D-rank.” 

“Right. What about after that?”

“C-ranked spells have at least one modification, and sometimes more. So something like _Super Charge Beam_. It’s a long-range, powerful spell that’s designed to be easily modified. That being said, that kind of attack is notable as a shield-breaker and piercer because of how intense it can get, if you will enough magic into it.”

“And B-rank is _Firestorm_?”

Leona hums thoughtfully. “A better example of a B-rank spell would be _Spiral Dragon Blade._ A powerful piercer with anti-magic properties that can travel over a sizable range, but with a limited width.”

“Would an A-ranked spell be a B-ranked spell, with a wider scope?”

She nods. “Mostly, yes. Mother’s _Firestorm_ is closer to an A-ranked spell. It meets all of the qualifiers, and it certainly has the scope.”

“Right…she’d mentioned that it would have gone through the wards that shield the base if she hadn’t held it back.” 

“Exactly.” Leona beams. “And her S-ranked version is…well…it’s devastating. Imagine her proper Firestorm but on a scale large enough to wipe the Academy nine times over.”

I whistle. 

“That’s incredible.” 

“S-Ranked spells are totally different from the other rankings.” Leona explains passionately. “They almost always take a great deal of time to invoke, but their results exist on a scale beyond anything you can even imagine. Anyways, we’re here now.” 

We stand in front of a tall glass building, the contents inside obscured by frosted panes.

“I can see that.” I say dryly. 

“Shush, Servant.” She says, grinning. “This is the Garden.” Magic swirls around her fingers, caressing the front of the building. “Give me your hand, Servant, so that I can key you in.”

“Understood, Mistress.” I place my hand in hers. “Is this why the others did not accompany us?” 

She smiles slightly. “Yes. The Garden is only unlocked outside of classes to those with special privileges. I have been granted that. _Open._ ” 

Glass panes abruptly turn completely translucent, granting us access. Smiling slightly, Leona pulls me in by the hand.

_“Close.”_

The glass closes shut, leaving us surrounded by a massive variety of fauna. She lets my hand go.

“Few classes are held in the Garden. And only the most advanced students may participate in them…and of those, half drop out before their second class.”

“Why is that?” 

Abruptly, Leona’s magical aura flares, and I stiffen as I realize a dozen vines had been creeping towards the two of us.

With a swish of long blonde hair, the magus turns to face me. Her wand spins in her right hand, a simple extension of her arm. 

“Because when you stare into the Garden, the Garden stares back. This Garden is responsible for at least one fatality a year. Someone who isn’t prepared sneaks in and is torn to pieces.”

My mind whirls with questions. “Then, why keep such a facility here? And…is it really so hard to ward it from mere students?”

“Wards aren’t perfect at all.” Leona murmurs. “They have limitations. There’s no perfect defense, not even close. And there’s plenty of ways to pierce through them. And as for why…? Magical flora are incredibly useful. It’s just that…magic grants them a sort of sentience? Our fauna, too. Silver wolves are just one example.” 

“And, besides…” The smile on Leona’s face turns a little bit malicious, “What better way to remind students that magic is to be respected?” 

“Is that why you like it here?” 

She shakes her head. “It’s quite interesting in here, even with all the danger. Funny story, actually, I’ll tell you sometime, almost died my first time in here.”

I wince.

“But I’ve never had a problem with the Garden since then.” Leona grins triumphantly, her focusing gem brightening, promising blazing Fire. The creeping plants shy away from the light, understanding without truly comprehending. 

“Fascinating.” I murmur thoughtfully. “I think I’d be interested in hearing what exactly some of these plants do.”

She favors me with a bright smile. “Then we’ll talk first about the Creeping Vines, otherwise known as…” 

We talk through the rest of the lunch period.

  
  



	104. (4.3.3) Sunset, Part 3

#  **4.3.3 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Sunset, Part Three**

“Hmm...I need to head to my Divination class...” Leona glances at me as we make our way up through the Center. “But you can’t join me.”

“Why not?” I ask curiously. 

“Well, because the Instructor can read minds—” Eyes wide, she snaps her wand into her hand and points at the wall next to us. A decent chunk of it vanishes, enough for me to fit through— 

_Wait a minute..._

“She’s coming! Meet me in three hours on the rooftop!” Leona whispers hastily, then kicks me out of the hole— 

...

“For fuck’s sake, Leona, I was on the fifth floor...” As surprised as I had been, I hadn’t been prepared — so although I had managed to easily reinforce myself, I hadn’t managed to flip myself into a better position, and as such find myself looking up at the sky. 

“Are you — are you okay!? A familiar feminine voice asks me. 

“Huh? Oh, it’s you, Selena?” I tilt my head up, the girl’s worried face in my peripheral vision. “Hey. Nice weather we’re having out here, huh?”

“Did you just — were you just _pushed_ out of the building?” 

“Uh...yeah.”

“By who!?” 

I scramble to figure out a reasonable excuse. “I, uh. Lady Leona and I had a difference of opinion.”

_Technically true._

“A — A difference of opinion that caused her to throw you out of the building?!” 

“Uh...it was a very vigorous difference of opinion.” 

She glares flatly at me. “I’ll talk to her about it. That’s no way to — I can’t believe she would—” 

“It was...probably justified?” 

“Eh? What justifies that?!”

“Er...family secrets.” 

“Oh, is that how it is?” Selena frowns, but nods. “Alright. I guess I won’t pry.” 

“Well...” I frown. “Needless to say, Lady Leona and I are a bit closer than Servant and Master.”

“W-Wait, so you guys are...lovers?”

I cringe. “No. Definitely not!” 

“If not...then...but why...?”

I shrug. “I’ll leave that for you to figure out. Anyways...I have an appointment to make. See you in a bit, Selena.” 

“Huh?”

Flashing her a small grin, I run up the building’s walls, headed to the roof.

“Uh, wait, Aspen, there’s—” 

As I make it past the fence blocking off the roof from the open air, I realize that, for some reason, I can’t move through the air there—

And then I’m abruptly hurled away. Thankfully, I’m more prepared for it, and manage to catch myself on a current of Wind before sinking to the ground.

“...There’s a ward walling off the rooftop.” Selena finishes lamely. 

“Oh.” I say. “Yes. Yes there is.” I suppress a blush. “Anyways, why aren’t you in class right now?”

Selena scratches her head awkwardly. “I’m, uh...skipping. Magical Law is something I’m already familiar with, given my family...so I don’t really _need_ to be there, and...” 

I shrug. “I’m not going to judge you on your attendance, so you don’t need to justify it for me.” 

“Oh.” Selena flushes. “Sorry, I’ve just...gotten used to it.” 

“Needing to uphold a sterling reputation?”

“Yeah, exactly.” She looks inquisitively at me. “You...you seem like you understand?” 

I nod. “Of pretending that you’re someone you’re not? I think I may have a fair idea, yes.”

_Heh._

Selena smiles brightly. “I’m...it’s nice to know that there’s another person out there who understands what you’re going through. I’ll, uh, see you later?”

I wave. “See you around, Selena. Probably sooner than you think.”

...

After escaping from Selena and giving her time to think over the bullshit I had just fed her, I meditated on the rooftop for the next few hours. Eventually, Leona had made her way up here, Selena and Robin behind her. 

She races over to me, scowling. “What did you tell Selena?!” She hisses into my ear.

“What?”

“She thinks I’m abusing you!” 

I snicker. “Oops. My apologies, Milady.” 

Leona narrows her eyes at me, but by then the other two have caught up. “So just why are we gathered on the rooftop anyways?” I ask. 

“It’s where we train!” Leona says cheerfully, pasting a grin onto her face. “At least, on my off days when I’m not at Mage Knight training.” 

“You train?” I ask, curious. “What do you do?”

“A variety of things.” She smiles maliciously. “Want to join? We’re reviewing from the ground up in preparation for Winter Examinations.” 

“Mistress?”

“Don’t worry. I know you’re quite behind everyone.” She says reassuringly. “But we’ll be doing a basic review anyways, and it’s a good chance for Selena and Robin to prove that they’re ready, anyways.”

Selena pouts. “I’m ready! It’s Robin we’re worried about.” The two girls smirk. 

“Hey!”

“Quick, Robin, Selena just threw a _Karalutsu_ at you! How do you counter?” 

“Uh—“

“Time’s up!” Leona shoots a jet of water at Robin, dousing the boy in what seems to be icy-cold fluid based off of the vicious swearing that follows. “You don’t have time to think in a fight! The answer is, Selena?!”

“ _Razusa!_ ” The pinkette manages to get her own counter in time to block the pulse of water, Leona’s magic dissipating against the shield.

“Good.” My mischievous friend turns to me as Robin dries himself off with a burst of hot wind. “There are different shield types that correspond to different elements. And generally a shield will block an attack that is of equal power, or even a little bit higher. So more effort must be put on the caster to defend. But according to _Battle Magic_ doctrine, shielding to block a single spell is considered an undesirable outcome. Why, Robin!?”

“Because — _Razusa, damn it woman!_ — taking the time to shield gives your opponent the initiative!”

“Correct! When possible, it’s always better to dodge or counter in a way that forces your opponent to react!” Leona silently throws out a flashing series of spells, and Selena and Robin dart around and shield only when necessary. 

Idly, I note that stray spells dissipate on wards that seem to circle the roof. 

“Pay attention, Servant!” 

Leona hurls a dozen magical bolts at me, and I nimbly slip around every one. Her two friends stare, stunned.

“It took me five seconds to throw that spell chain.” Leona points out. “And my Servant dodged with no magical use of his own. That’s five seconds he could be casting back at me, or preparing a really powerful spell. When possible, dodging is the most optimal defensive option. So, Servant! What’s the most optimal counter to dodging?”

“Using spells to inhibit an opponent’s ability to dodge, or using a spell to trick an opponent into dodging into a spell they can’t avoid.” 

“Good. A demonstration, now. _Fire Wave_ ! _”_

I leap backwards, ducking slightly and watch as the blast of flame starts trailing upwards.

“ _Quintuple Fireball!_ ”

Fire fills my vision. Flicking my wrist, my secondary wand snaps into my hand.

 _Freeze._

Ice pierces into and dissipates the ball of fire nearest to me, forcing Leona to throw up a translucent blue shield that absorbs the magic harmlessly. 

“Good, Servant.” She says approvingly. For a moment, I’m reminded of her mother. 

“Notice how he blocked with a spell that forced me to counter myself? There’s a back-and-forth flow to magical combat, and the winner is the one who can force their opponent to break that flow. Servant, demonstrate with me. Simple spells only, alright? Now… _Fire Wave!”_

Once again, I duck, a _Freeze_ spell countering her _Quintuple Fireball_. 

_“Ice Negation.”_

The spell shatters harmlessly on her shield, and she slides smoothly into a thrust that sends a lance of flame towards me. I slip past, closing the gap between us as a spell crystallizes in my mind.

_“Ice Cannon!”_

A spiral of power erupts from the tip of my wand. Leona’s eyes widen as she hastily blocks with an intense shield that only manages to slightly deflect the projectile away from her, forcing her to quickly dodge to the side. 

Silently, I call my power together, this magic which is at once Mine and Not Mine, and it responds, a blade of Ice forming around my wand. 

The blonde magus grins as her free hand erupts in her trademark hard light, our blades crashing into each other. Trading a few blows back and forth, she disarms me in our fourth quick exchange, the flat of her sword unerringly finding the top of my wrist. 

_Good gods, where does she find the time to do anything between her magical proficiency and her weapons mastery?_

“Holy shit.” Robin mutters. “That couldn’t have been…what, more than ten seconds?”

“Milady has always been the more skilled between us.” I smile as Leona hands me back my wand. “But I have my own tricks.”

“Now I really want to fight you.” Selena exclaims, looking excited.

“Mistress, what do you think?”

“Go for it.” The blonde says cheerfully. “It’s not every day that I see Selena actually want to fight…actually, why don’t you fight Robin, too, at the same time? Keep yourself to basic spells, and don’t use that _Ice Cannon_ spell on them, they might not counter it probably and I don’t care to spend magic on healing.”

Selena pouts. “What made that spell so dangerous that we can’t handle it?”

“If she had blocked that head-on,” I say flatly, “She would have been impaled against the wall.”

“O-Oh.” The pinkette pales. 

“But he knew you could handle it, didn’t he?” Robin asks cautiously. 

We both nod. “I’ve thrown far worse than that at her.” I smirk, thinking about _Stormbreaker._

A small smile plays on Leona’s lips. “That you have. Now, Robin, Selena, are you ready for your practical practice? He’ll be gentle, promise.”

The orange-haired magus responds:

“ _Flame Serpent!”_

A coiling flame attack launches itself at me. Having felt the magical build-up, I’m not taken off guard, vaulting away as a living flame lunges towards me.

Then blink, surprised, as the spell construct continues chasing after me.

_Someone’s been paying attention._

My wand rises, aimed not at the serpent but at the caster, and a bolt of ice silently leaps off it. Selena deflects it with a wall of water, my magic freezing it on contact.

_He can still see me through that, can’t he? But, I doubt his spell can track me without a visual focus, so—_

I cast a second spell into the wall, pure intent and willpower, and the Ice turns abruptly opaque.

With a sound of surprise, Robin shifts to try and keep track of me, but the control over his spell is lost and it crashes into the rooftop wards. Another spell throws dense snow into the air, disguising me from view without obstructing my own vision, and causing Selena to hesitate, her own spell fizzling out on her wand. 

Power flooding my body, I dart out of the cloud, slamming a crushing kick into the girl’s hastily-raised guard. It doesn’t break her arms, so she’s managed to reinforce herself, but her reinforcement is clearly several magnitudes of power below mine, as I still send her sprawling, guard abruptly broken.

“He fights like Leona!” Selena exclaims, rapidly backpedaling to gain distance. 

_When you open your mouth to speak…that’s time you aren’t casting with._

Silently, I flick my wand, a sheet of Ice flying off of it. Flinching, the pinkette casts an ice negation shield as I continue to move closer to her.

_It doesn’t cover her feet._

“He’s trapping you between us!” Robin warns. “I can’t get a good shot off!” 

My wand stabs between us, and freezing water sprays out from it, coating the ground underneath her in frost before she can react. 

She slips. 

Grinning, I lunge forward, hand closing around her wrist before she can stop me, and neatly disarm her with a twist before grabbing her with the other hand and bodily hurling her at Robin. The pinkette shrieks, managing to right herself midair in an impressive display of acrobatics, but she’s not able to stop herself from crashing into her ally and sending them both to the ground.

“I think we can call that my win, can’t we?” I direct the question to Leona as the two magi groan in pain.

“Decisively so.” She says, looking terribly amused. “Now, Selena, Robin, what have we learned?”

“Practice my reinforcement.” Selena mutters, rubbing her arms ruefully.

“Just knock my partner out of the way.” Robin grins. 

The two girls shoot him a flat glare.

“What mistakes did you make? Or, rather, what mistakes did my Servant force you to make? What was your first misstep?” Leona asks, taking up the role of instructor once again.

“It was when he changed the color of the ice.” Selena volunteers. “Robin lost control of his spell and it gave him the initiative.”

“Yes. Good analysis of his spell, by the way.” Leona briefly compliments me. “That was the first misstep, because neither of you expected him to do something like that. He immediately seized initiative in your hesitation and from then on out, you were playing defensively. What else?”

“We didn’t immediately clear his cloud.” Robin says. “But neither of us really had an element suited for it.”

“…I did, actually.” Selena says guiltily. “I already had a spell pre-loaded, though, but the snow going up caused me to drop it. Then I started putting together the spell to dissolve the snow, but then he jumped me…”

“And that’s another thing.” Leona says sternly. “Aspen cast more spells than you guys! There’s two of you and you’re both seventh-years! Keep up!” 

“Selena was betw—“ 

“Cast non-linear spells! What’re you, a ninja?” Leona barks, interrupting him. “Or — support Selena with supplementary spells! Tandem combat is about more than just throwing spells at your opponent!” 

Robin frowns, lost in thought. 

“Now I want to see you try that again! And you’d better last longer than twenty seconds this time!” 

_Heh. She really does resemble her mother._

…

I exit the study session with a smile on my face and a far more detailed understanding of how to combat mages. 

“Well done, Servant.” Leona says happily. 

“I can’t believe we couldn’t beat him even once…” Selena mopes behind us. 

“It was an…enlightening experience.” I say, shrugging. “Will we be doing anything else here tonight?”

Leona nods. “It’s emptier around the campus now, so I was thinking I’d show you around the rest of campus.” 

“I’ve gotta get home.” Robin interjects. “My mum’ll kill me if I’m not home for dinner.”

I glance at the sky. The sun is already dipping beneath the horizon. If he’d like to make it in time for dinner, he’d better move fast.

“Me too.” Selena says, waving. 

“How do you guys get home?” I ask curiously.

“The Warp Matrix.” They both volunteer. 

“I assume that’s how we’ll be getting home?” I ask, directing the question at Leona. 

“Yep.”

“Do you need us to escort you to the platform?” I ask. 

Selena smiles. “That’s quite alright. Thank you for the offer, though.”

I bow. “It was a pleasure meeting you two.”

“You too, Aspen.” 

“Yeah!” 

Everyone says their goodbyes before the two depart, making their way back to the platform. 

“Now that we have some time, I’ll show you around. The campus has eight major buildings, including the Garden. You’ve already been to the Center, so the next place to show you…”

…

On the left: the Hospital, with a purpose as obvious as it seems; the Garden, which Leona’s already shown me; and the Lab, the second-largest building only to the Center and that is used for magical research. 

On the right: the Library, a massive structure containing many thousands of books, memories, and other things; the Arena, a building designed for combat practice and dueling; and the Administrative Office. 

“And this last area…” Leona gestures at the area beyond the Center, a series of marked fields and small buildings that seem to be at least as large as the entire campus, “These collectively are the Fields. They’re used for a whole bunch of outdoors assignments and classes, animal raising and training, and—“

A series of distant howls cut us off. 

My eyes narrow. “That…sounds like a pack of Silver Wolves. Can they enter the campus? If so, I’ll defend you, Milady.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” The blonde magus grins. “It’s just the Silver Tamer’s night run.” 

“The…Silver Tamer?”

“Lady Leonaaaaaaa!” 

A girl with long, flowing silver hair charges towards us on the back of a massive Silver Wolf, a dozen of its kind trailing behind it. 

“…How creative.” I murmur wanly. 

“You should see what they call me.” 

“The Firelight Magus?” 

“…How—?” 

“Lucky guess. Seemed like you.” 

She sighs, then smiles brightly as the so-called Silver Tamer approaches. “Good evening, Kristia.” 

This Kristia is a young-looking yet tall student of the Academy, an Earth student based on the colors of her uniform, with silver hair and bright sapphire-colored eyes. It’s quite the distinct image, this noble-born lady astride a mighty wolf. 

“Good evening, Lady Leona.” She smiles. “And who might your companion be?”

“I am called Aspen, humble servant to the Dawn family, and in particular to my Mistress, Lady Leona.” I perform the required introduction, bowing as I do. “Well met, Lady…?”

“Zakaro. Lady Zakaro, Servant.” She curtsies. I note the lack of the courtesy return. It isn’t really rude, given that I’m simply a ’servant’, though. “You can take your eyes off the wolves, now. They won’t bite.”

And, indeed, they look fantastically trained. They stare at me curiously, but not particularly threateningly. 

“Unless you order them to?” I ask.

She sniffs. “Of course.” 

“Then I’ll keep watching them, as you’re an unknown quantity.” 

“Stand down, Servant.” Leona murmurs next to me. Instantly, I take a step back, my wand slipping back into its holster. “Sorry about that, Kristia. He tends to get a little overzealous.” 

“It’s no problem at all, Lady Leona.” She says, a slight smile on her face. “Have you come to assist me in my training again?” 

My friend hums thoughtfully. “I had been showing Aspen around the campus, but we’re not in any particular rush. And the experience ought to be interesting for him. Sure.”

“Great! Thank you so much. I’m ready whenever you are!”

“Stand back, Servant.” 

“Milady?”

“I’m ready.” 

“Go!” From atop her mount, Kristia Zakaro thrusts forth a hand, and a trio of wolves split off from the pack and lunge after Leona. For a moment, I tense, but hold myself back, instead moving to gain distance. 

“Only three?” Leona laughs. Even as she speaks, her wand moves in a complicated pattern, a shimmering field of blue hexagons springing up to enclose her in a shield.

“Y-You set up a ward that fast?!” The Silver Tamer and her wolves pause in uncertainty for a moment, unsure how to react — but that’s enough time for Leona to launch a spell that freezes the three wolves. A flick of her wand sends them flying away. 

Then, suddenly— 

“Ah? Almost, Kristia. Almost.” 

Leona’s hand snaps down with incredible speed, highlighting another Silver Wolf that was about to lunge out of the ground at her feet. 

_Huh?! I didn’t even sense that coming! These Wolves have such a low magical signature that I can scarcely pick them up, even at close range. She was able to detect that even with the magical interference from her ward?_

Six more wolves begin moving to circle her. Leona looks supremely unconcerned, even as the last two leap off of the backs of their brethren, crashing onto the top of her ward shield.

“…Boom.”

As the six wolves lunge, clearly aiming to pressure out her shield, the entire setup explodes, sending smoking canine bodies flying everywhere.

“I’m not done yet! _Takusa!_ ” 

Dirt rises from the floor, enveloping the whimpering wolves, and wraps around their bodies in what is evidently some kind of reinforcing armor. Based on the way that they stand, it would seem that it has a rejuvenating effect on their injuries, as well, or perhaps simply numbs them. 

“Go! Stratagem 3b!” 

Immediately, all twelve wolves dive into the ground, sharpened claws whirling to give them all the appearance of highly mobile silver drills. 

“It’s your turn, Whitefang! _Lumagika!_ ” 

Suddenly, the mount she rides swells to over triple its already large size, growing to be easily four meters tall. Kristia vaults off of it, whirling with wand in hand—

“Again! _Lumagika!_ ”

Now the Silver Wolf is close to eight meters tall, a massive behemoth with powerful muscle and incredible mass behind it. 

“Leona…”

The Firelight Magus just flashes a cocky grin, wand pointed downward. Suddenly, a cloud of smoke erupts violently from her wand, obscuring her position. It doesn’t stop Whitefang from lunging into the cloud, a tremendous shockwave erupting from the impact.

“ _Livewire!”_

Howls fill the air as, within the smoke cloud, a massive canine spasms in pain. 

“No!” Kristia gasps, then flinches as Leona lands behind her, wand pointed at her back. “To me!”

The smaller wolves erupt out of the ground in spirals of whirling stone, crushing Leona between them— 

A white bolt snaps out from the smoke cloud, smacking into Kristia with enough force to instantly render her unconscious. As she collapses to the ground, the smoke cloud is blown away to reveal a perfectly unharmed Leona, standing on top of an unresponsive, normally-sized Whitefang. 

_I knew it. An illusion. The wolves probably were able to detect Leona through scent, but followed the call of their master._

The wolves snarl, but Leona growls right back, a pulse of her magical aura quelling them enough for her to walk over and touch her wand to the tip of their Master, reviving her. 

“Owww…” 

“Good fight, Kristia.” Leona says cheerfully. “You’ll probably need a few minutes to wake up properly, so I’ll leave you be for now. I’ll find you tomorrow to give you feedback, kay? Kay. Alright, let’s go, brother—!” Leona cuts herself off. “Uh, Aspen. Servant.” 

The silver-haired girl waves blearily as I follow Leona, making our way away from the fields and out of the school. I’m unsure if Leona’s little ‘slip’ will matter, but I don’t suppose it’ll hurt. I’m preoccupied with other thoughts, though. 

_That massive wolf…it would have given even me pause. And Leona wiped it out with two spells in the span of a few heartbeats. I think here, on her territory, Leona is stronger than me. I’ll have to keep that in mind when I look to combat powerful mages. Students should be fine, though, using Selena and Robin as benchmarks. Even this Silver Tamer I could defeat without resorting to Etheria._

_Leona might wipe the floor with me, though. I took her off guard with my Ice magic the first time, but she doesn’t strike me as the type of person to fall for the same thing twice._

_At least that fight against her with Mari confirmed one thing for me: the future-sight of a Clairvoyant isn’t on-demand, or I’d never have beaten her at all. This means that Clairvoyants aren’t totally unstoppable…they just have some special powers._

_Just…like Aberrants._

“I’m tired.” Leona groans. 

“You worked hard today, Mistress.” I say, smiling fondly.

“…Thanks.” She flushes slightly. “But I didn’t do as much as I do usually.”

“Would you like it if I helped you train when we get home, Milady?”

She hums thoughtfully. “We’ll see. I think my Mother has plans, though…”

“Alright. We’ll see what happens then.” 

A few students linger around the platform, apparently saying their goodbyes, and they pay us no mind as we rest our hands on the Warp Matrix—

“Wait, Leona, the wards are lowered, right?”

“Of course.” She taps her head. 

_Right. Alexandria is capable of telepathy._

“Then…take us home.”

_“Mazuateru!”_

_…_

We reappear at the Warp Matrix in Lord Black’s manor, Alexandria and Lord Black staring at a map on the other side of the room.

“It’s obvious that they’ll siege Alune, they don’t have the resources to simply go through, and our special forces will be tied up merely trying to hold their Spellweavers at bay…welcome back, Leona and Yuki.”

“Good evening.” I reply, Leona echoing me. “What are we strategizing about here?” 

“Tracking the invasion.” Lord Black says absently. “Anyways, they’ll be forced to circle it, less casualties if one of their Spellweavers throws something massive…that will require them to get around this river and chasm…here, as well as navigate through Alune’s forests…” 

“Both are easily defended points. I imagine that two of their three Spellweavers will be deployed there to stop easy access. Then the third one can rampage through the funnel that blocking off those points would create. And assassinating either of their Spellweavers is a highly unlikely occurrence.” Alexandria points out.

“Of course, they could just bypass the river and chasm points entirely, simply going through the forest…or burning it down entirely.” 

“I’m sure Alunian leadership is well aware of that option. They’ll reinforce the forest so heavily that burning it without the usage of a few Archmages will be next to impossible…and if Arcacia responded with those, they’d likely get ambushed and killed themselves. Alune is just too good at that game.” She glances at me. “Which should go without saying, given that a first-year ninja managed to bypass our border protections.” 

“So what will Arcacia do, then?”

“It’s hard to say…” Alexandria trails off. “It’s impossible for Arcacia to use raw numbers against them…even with a healthy supply of MG’s, Magical Field Theory works against them.”

“MGs?” I whisper to Leona. 

“Magical Generators. They’re job is to flood magic into the air to help mitigate the lack of magic in the air away from Arcacia.” Leona whispers back. 

“So sieging would be challenging since…you’d be limited by the amount of magic in the air. In other words, the amount of MGs. What makes a good MG? High quantity, high control?” 

“Correct. Most MGs are in the mid-low range, though. The best spellcasters are always combatants.”

I frown. “The best spellcasters don’t _need_ to be combatants. Someone like Leona would be perfectly sufficient for battle. Mid-B rank spells…Battle Magic…it wouldn’t take much more than that to do some substantial damage. And Firestorm itself is only a high-B rank spell. And MGs would be safer, not quite on the front line, wouldn’t they be?”

“Not necessarily — they still have to be very close, close enough to come into physical contact with the one they support. But that’s essentially correct, yes. But you’ll find most of the upper-tier mages don’t want to be MGs.” Alexandria interjects as I realize belatedly that the two elder magi have stopped their conversation in order to listen to us instead. 

“That’s stupid.” I mutter. 

She shrugs. “People are stupid.”

“We’ll break for now, Alexandria.” Lord Black says, moving back to his desk. “Let us both think on this matter.” 

“As you wish.” She says easily. “Leona, Yuki—“

_“Unseal!”_

For just a moment, I get to treasure the look of absolute shock on Alexandria’s face as the floor disappears out from under us. 

Then a flicker of anger. 

_I’m inclined to let her have what she deserves this time, though._

…

A few minutes later, Alexandria has dropped me off with a much-subdued Leona in our room. 

“Leona.”

“Huh?”

“You’re smart, right?”

“…I think so?”

“Then why do you keep antagonizing your mother, who happens to be one of the scariest people we know?”

“I…don’t know?”

I sigh. 

“Well…at least classes today was simple enough. If things remain this way…well, my stint as your servant won’t be too bad, huh?”

She smiles, but it’s subdued, bitter.

“You haven’t met Lucian Ketami yet. And for your sake…for _his_ sake, I hope you never do.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incidentally, lightning spells are upper-level Air magic. Why, you might ask?
> 
> ...Welcome to Arcacia.


	105. (4.3.4) Sunset, Part 4

#  **4.3.4 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Sunset, Part Four**

After assisting Leona with her training for a few hours, I go off by myself and find Mari. She’s in a room with one of the commoners who escorted us here. Upon seeing me, though, the commoner politely bows, then excuses himself. 

“Yo.” She waves at me, eyes bright with excitement. 

I smile. “What’ve you been up to?” 

She grins back, electricity sparking down her arms. “This!” 

A lightning spear crackles to life in her arms, and she quickly runs through a blistering set of attacks. It...looks surprisingly polished, actually.

"You wield it like a real weapon, now." I say, surprised.

She grins. "I feel a lot better using this, now...I kind of just used it like an unbreakable hammer before."

“Well, good work. Anyways, I needed your opinion on something.”

I quickly relate the conversation I’d been in earlier regarding the potential strategy about Arcacia’s invasion, then detour slightly as I realize that she doesn’t know what Magical Field Theory is. 

“Huh. How come they don’t just use runes?”

“…I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.” 

…

“Of course they use runes!” Leona chastises us. “But you underestimate how much magic is needed for the bigger spells. Good luck casting anything higher than B-rank outside of Arcacia, and that’s only for the very skilled users! If I tried casting _Spiral Dragon Blade_ outside of the country, then I’d totally drain myself and I’d have to get carted out.” 

“What about special elements like Alexandria?” I ask.

She bites her lip. “It’s hard to say. She’s casted S-rank spells outside of Arcacia, but she definitely needed Magical Generators. And she’s, well, she’s not as strong as she used to be.”

I blink. “Is she…was she injured?”

She shakes her head, an indecipherable look crossing her face for a moment. “No, that’s not it. It’s…the _Ritual of Succession_. We’ll be running it again in an hour, so…”

“This ritual weakens her? Then why does she do it?” Mari asks curiously. 

“Don’t you think it’s unusual how much stronger I am than my peers?” The blonde magus asks. 

“I’ve always just assumed that you were better.” Mari admits. 

“This ritual, it weakens her and empowers you. A transfer of power?” I conclude. 

“Pretty much.” Leona sighs. “I’ll…look, you can come watch, I guess. Rituals are pretty important.” 

“I’d like to see.” I confirm. “I’ve undergone a few rituals myself, but they weren’t…clean. I think your understanding of theory vastly exceeds mine.” 

“I see.” She murmurs. “Then, come. I will need to prepare myself, but meet me outside of my room in fifty minutes.”

…

“Alright, I’ll take you to the place.”

We walk silently into the room Leona directs us to. Her mother glances briefly at us. 

“Welcome,” Alexandria says simply, “To the Ritual of Succession.” 

Dark purple runes glow, engraved within a complex circular figure of blood. They converge into the center, where two smaller circles glimmer on opposing ends. 

“What is all of this?” I ask, stunned. It’s certainly a ritual that far exceeds the mockeries that Hikaru and I have thrown together. 

“As the name implies, this ritual oversees a pass-down of power between two family members, related directly by blood. It can be performed up to once a week. I give power, she receives it, and we both permanently sacrifice a shared memory.”

“How insane.” I murmur. “And I assume the memory has to be important or the ritual loses power.” 

“Principle of Magical Value.” Alexandria nods. “We’ve run this ritual dozens of times already, so Leona has received quite a fair amount of strength.” 

“…And you’re still as powerful as you are?” I ask, disbelieving. 

“The amount of power I can give is limited, both by her ability to receive and by the memories we are willing to surrender.” She replies. “I could give up our entire existence together, the memory of our familial bond, and donate nearly half of my power. She would receive perhaps an eighth of that. But I won’t.” 

Wordlessly, Leona moves to the closer circle, kneeling with her back to us. She’s dressed in a simple black robe, as is Alexandria. 

“And this is not done more often because…older mages do not want to give up their power?”

“It is inefficient.” The elder magus disagrees. “That transfer ratio is only possible due to a number of preceding rituals, and because of my own skill and Leona’s own natural talent. And…the ritual can not be done with a child raised specially for the ritual.”

“…It would taint the memories, wouldn’t it?” Mari asks perceptively. “By your Principle of Magical Value…”

“Correct. Besides that, the base value of this ritual, with an average magus and recipient, would be about ten times less efficient.”

_With their loss factor of eight…so usually, eighty times the amount of magic gained is lost? That’s horrifyingly inefficient. No, wait, before that—_

“Wait, so you would have…but then…” I struggle to put my thoughts into words. “If you had known of the ritual prior to the child’s birth, then it would have been on your mind as an option, and…no, even after the birth…” 

“It would have weakened the transfer more. Yes. But that’s unavoidable. The second you learn of the ritual, your thoughts are tainted. Even wiping your memories of the ritual prior to making memories and restoring them shortly before the ritual fails. The memories will simply be tainted by your regained knowledge. It is an unavoidable inefficiency of the ritual.”

“And the weaker the bond is between parent and child, the more inefficient it is…so a bond created for the purpose of the ritual would be very fragile…”

_And the more the ritual is run, the less efficient it gets?_

“Precisely.” Alexandria smiles thinly. “Now, please remain silent and still until we’re finished. I’ll tell you when.” She waits for us to nod. “Ready, Leona?”

“Yes…Mother.” 

…

A knife slips out from Alexandria’s sleeve, falling perfectly into her hand. Without any hesitation, she uses it to slash a jagged wound down the palm of her other before handing it to Leona. The blonde magus stares at the dagger contemplatively before cutting her own palm. 

Then, the two join hands, blood dripping and splattering over the central circle. 

“ **Lightbringer.** ” Alexandria. 

“ **Binder.** ” Leona. 

Their voices are low, reverent. Then the elder magus picks up the call. 

“We humbly request your presence.” 

The runes on the ground glow a little brighter, just for a fraction of a second. 

“In your name, we sacrifice a memory.”

“In your name, we plead for your guidance.” 

“The memory…our memory…Daughter, do you recall?”

“I recall. Mother, do you recall?” 

“I recall. A simple memory, just a few words. A memory most precious to both of us. After you had defeated Yuki in a duel, what were the words you spoke to me?” 

_“Have I…made you proud, Mother…?”_

“And, Daughter, how did I respond?”

_“You always have, daughter.”_

“These words of love, we sacrifice to you, Lightbringer. Our emotions, our fond memory. Please, accept our offering.” 

The runes glow blue, magic gathering around their bound hands and traveling to their heads. 

“…The sacrifice has been accepted. Now, Lightbringer, I offer a trade. I, Alexandria Louise of the Dawn Family, would offer a portion of my magical power.” 

“And I, Leona Grace of the Dawn Family, would humbly request to accept it.”

The magic grows, swells to a crescendo, the runes shining brightly— 

“Lightbringer, if you accept our trade, then we humbly beg you, answer!” 

Both scream in agony as power floods through them, then I feel it — the abrupt transfer, magic flowing from Alexandria to Leona, and then everything goes suddenly, deathly still, the runes fading and the magic dissipating, except for the tired pants of two women as their hands fall apart and they collapse to their knees. 

…

Leona stirs first, whimpering and clutching her head. I grimace, but force myself to stay still. I was told not to do anything until I received the signal, and so I shall, unless it seems that one of them is in truly severe danger. 

Glancing out of the corner of my eye at Mari to make sure she’s doing the same, I’m startled to see that tears are dripping down her cheeks. 

Alexandria groans, managing to stand unsteadily. 

“You two…can move now.” 

“…That was awful…” Mari whispers under her breath, fiercely wiping her face. 

“That was insane.” I mutter. “But I saw, and I understand. But—“ 

I stop. 

_What if I simply reminded you of the memory that was lost?_

_I can predict the answer — knowing that you would receive the memory back would weaken the ritual. In other words…that trick can only work once. The Principle of Ritual Memory Sacrifice, perhaps?_

_There’s no doubt that those words were important to you. Especially you, Leona. For you two to pick that memory…for the ritual to have taken…it must have been._

_But…if there’s something more important…_

_Another secret, then, that I have to keep._

“Leona—?!” 

The blonde magus races past me, exiting the room at a fast run. 

“Mari, take care of Alexandria!” That taken care of, I chase after the magus, trailing her to the empty training arena. 

Her wand snaps into her hand, magic flooding into her at a truly fantastic rate. 

_“Firestorm!”_ She screams.

Fire erupts, a torrential blaze that tears across the grounds, disintegrating earth and bending light with the intensity of its heat. 

All too soon, the spell ends, the flames fading. Leona sinks to her knees. 

“Leona!” I rush to her, wary of her mercurial mood. But she doesn’t react, letting me pry her blood-soaked wand out of her fingers — evidently, she hadn’t noted that the cut from the ritual was still freely bleeding.

“…It’s…then, that memory was…” Suddenly, she goes limp.

I pick her up, cradling the unconscious girl in my arms, and glance at the destruction.

 _That…was a perfect_ **_Firestorm_ ** _…_

…

“I’m sorry, Yuki, I didn’t think—“

“It’s okay.” I reassure her. “I’m just glad Leona’s asleep.”

Apparently, Mari had come to the same realization I had earlier, my so-called Principle of Ritual Memory Sacrifice, but hadn’t thought of the potential consequences of telling Alexandria. It’s not surprising, given that she’s far less knowledgeable about the true nature of magic than I am, but — _damn_. I had hoped to use that at a different time.

“I have to ask you two to vow not to tell me any more of the memories I’ve sacrificed.” Alexandria says quietly. It’s obvious that the ritual took a lot out of her.

“…Understandable.” Mari murmurs, still looking guilty.

“…I won’t swear a vow, but I’ll promise you on my honor that I won’t.” I say quietly. “Vows are dangerous to me. I’ve already sworn one that binds me deeply enough to be unable to take another easily.”

_I could, but…it would have to be temporary, and it would have to be truly, truly important to ever risk a cross._

“Understood. Then, Mari?”

“I can.” She whispers. “It’s my responsibility to, anyways. Will I need to draw blood?” 

“No, just take my hand. Oath vows are simple. Just repeat after me, and fill in where necessary.” So said, she clasps Mari’s hand in her own.

“I, your full name, swear to keep secret, to the best of my ability, any of the sacrificed memories shared between Alexandria Louise of the Dawn family and Leona Grace of the Dawn Family.” 

“I, Mari Aono, swear to keep secret, to the best of my ability, any of the sacrificed memories shared between Alexandria Louise of the Dawn family and Leona Grace of the Dawn Family.”

Magic glows blue around their bound hands for a moment, then fades away.

“Thank you, Mari. It is not an easy thing, to be bound.”

She shakes her head. “No. It’s just my responsibility.” The Storm Mistress moves towards the door of the ritual room, pausing to turn and glance at me. 

“Hey…I’ll be in the room when you’re done here.”

“I’ll be there soon…anddd she’s gone.” 

“Well, now that we’re alone—“ I turn to Alexandria, who stares at me with sharp eyes, “Please tell me what happened today.”

…

“So that’s how it is? I’ll give him a chance, then. Just one.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Simple. I want you to find a reason to make an example out of someone.”

  
  



	106. (4.3.5) Sunset, Part 5

#  **4.3.5 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Sunset, Part Five**

“So what happened last night?” I ask Leona straightforwardly as we wait for her two friends by the Summoning Platform.

She grimaces, exhaustion clear on her features. Magic wraps around us — some kind of ward. “I hate the Ritual of Succession.”

“Why?”

“Because it takes away my happiest memories.” 

I’m not sure how to reply to that. 

“Every time I grow stronger, it means I’ve lost something important to me. And I don’t know what. All I know is that my Mother loves me…but there’s precious few memories to reassure myself with.” 

“Do you feel alone?” 

“No, not quite…” She trails off. “Just…I don’t know. I hate thinking about it…especially now.”

“Hey, Leona! Aspen!” Selena runs up to us, looking cheerful. My so-called Mistress lets the ward around us dissolve, pasting a smile on her face.

“Hey!” 

“Good morning, Selena and Robin.”

“Yo.” 

“Right, let’s try not to be late to class today…Aspen, if you could watch out for any traps?”

“Of course, Mistress. Incidentally, I’ve been meaning to ask…Other people must have walked past the trap that Lucian Ketami set. So why weren’t they affected?”

She glances at me. “Intent. If he wanted it to only affect us, it wouldn’t be too hard.”

“I see.” I muse.

_Is it really that easy to warp magic? Or is it a product of his Clairvoyance? Or perhaps…sheer skill?_

_What, exactly,_ ** _is_** _Clairvoyance?_

…

There are no traps waiting for us at school this time, and we get into class a few moments before the bell. 

“Ah, I see the three of you have deigned to arrive to class on time.” 

A small smile flits across Leona’s face as she conjures my place next to her again. 

“No promises for tomorrow.” She mutters under her breath.

“Welcome to Advanced Magical Theory. Last class, we reviewed Magical Field Theory…”

It seems that every day begins with this theory class. That being said, it’s quite interactive for a syllabus that professes to be all about theory — this instructor seems to be quite experienced at keeping his class’s attention. 

“Now, let’s talk about what that all means. Miss Dawn! Come up here!” 

“Yes, sir.” She does as commanded, and, soon enough, faces him on the stage. 

“Mister Qiratisa, a dueling ward?”

“ _Keasaka!”_

“Good. Now, I shall perform the same basic exercise that was done yesterday, but we’ll be doing things a little differently.”

Once again, the instructor absorbs the ambient magic within the ward to him. It takes a bit longer, since the magic is all…for lack of a better description, ‘spread-out’, instead of mostly concentrated where Selena had casted.

“Now, will Miss Dawn be able to cast a spell?”

“Can’t she just cast using her core?” A girl in the front asks. 

“But of course. What are the downsides to casting from her core?”

“She gets tired a lot faster!” 

“It’s a lot harder than usual to cast outside of your affinity!” 

“If she overdoes it, she risks death via core breakdown!” 

“Spells generated from the core take more time to form, and there’s a much stiffer power cap.” Leona offers. 

“All of those are true! Casting from your core is inefficient and hazardous, but there are a few benefits. What are they?”

“You can cast more specific spells!”

“You can cast even when there’s little to no ambient mana!” 

“Good…” The instructor says, but I get the idea that he’s searching for something more. 

“Casting from the core stretches it more than simple spellcasting, growing your capacity over time.”

“Very good, Miss Dawn. I’d like you to demonstrate some of the benefits of core casting for the class. I will put up a simple Water Negation Shield. Your goal is to cast a Water spell that will penetrate this barrier without simply overpowering it. Ready?”

She hums thoughtfully. “I think I can do that.”

“Good. When you’re ready.” He instructs her, silently casting his shield. She takes a second to pull her energy together — it’s _fascinating_ , feeling the fluctuations in her core— 

“ _Steam Cloud_.”

He raises an eyebrow as it approaches, and it deflects harmlessly off the shield.

“What? Oh, I see. _Mirazusa._ That’s closer to a Fire application than a Water one, but still technically within the limits.”

“What did she do?” Selena whispers to me. 

“If I had to guess…superheated the steam. Heat isn’t blocked by his Water Negation Shield even if the vapor is.” 

“Oooh…”

“Try again, Miss Dawn. Pure water, this time.”

Leona frowns thoughtfully, wand spinning idly in her hand. 

“Then how about…? No…” 

“Come now, Miss Dawn. I called you, in particular, and not anyone else up here for a reason. What is the type of magic that can only be casted from the core?” 

“Ah!” 

This time, she concentrates for a full five seconds before releasing _Water Spike_ , a sharp spike of water that easily burns through the barrier and forces the instructor to create a shield of iron to block it. 

“Excellent demonstration. You may sit.”

Leona does, an unreadable look on her face. 

“Everything alright, princess?” Robin asks mockingly. 

“I feel really stupid.” She admits, burying her head in her arms. “Is this how the rest of you feel all the time?”

“Hey!” 

“By now, all of you should already know of the ranking system regarding magic. What Leona casted on stage was a very low B-ranked spell. Why was it that highly ranked despite being so weak?”

“Because it had anti-magic properties.”

“Very good, Miss Tsuzera. That is why it went through the Water Negation Shield. Now, a question for the class. Can you cast B-ranked spells using external magic?” 

_Based on Leona’s demonstration yesterday, the answer should be—_

“Yes. But the more complicated the spell, the more you have to draw on your core, right?” Robin asks. 

“Very good. As we’ve already noted, directly using your core is taxing and exhausting. However, the benefits to using it, should you train it properly, will outweigh the growth from standard spellcasting…and, should you ever desire to learn to cast wandlessly, you will be required to be competent in core-casting.”

…

“You’ll enjoy this class.” Leona promises gleefully as we make our way down to the Arena. “It’s Robin’s favorite class…and Selena’s most dreaded class.” 

The pinkette just whimpers. “I hate that I let you talk me into these things, Leona. I really do.” 

“Wat’cha talkin’ ‘bout?”

We all whirl around, surprised. A smirking lady with long black hair and a simple robe stands behind us, twirling her wand. And her aura—

_She reminds me distinctly of Alexandria. Void above, another one of these people?_

“P-Principal Kemikeru.” Selena stutters. “Good morning.” 

“Hehe, you’re so cute.” She leans forward and pats the pinkette affectionately on the head. “And Robin, too? Good morning! And my favoooorite student…” She turns to Leona. “Have you been feeling alright? Eating well? Getting enough sleep?”

“…Good morning, Instructor Kemikeru.” She mutters, looking annoyed. 

“It’s been five whole days since you’ve tried to break into my office, you know? I’ve been getting lonely without my favorite precocious thief trying to steal all my stuff!” 

“…I’m fine.” Leona rolls her eyes.

_I’d mostly dismissed Leona’s mischievousness as being simple story-telling. I see now that was a mistake._

“And you?” She glances at me. “Oh?” A moment later, I feel a second presence settle within me…then a third. 

**Hey, Leona!**

I blink as a feminine voice rings through my head. Telepathy again?

**_What?_ **

Now I’m truly disturbed as a second voice joins the first. Leona. 

**Where’d you pick this one up from?**

**_A gift from my mother._ **

_Could you guys keep it down in here? It’s getting a bit loud._

**Oh, yes. We’ll be talking later, understand, Leona? About how you’ve brought a ninja into my Academy.**

It takes every ounce of my composure not to react to that statement. 

**_Understood_ ** _._

And Leona doesn’t even attempt to deny the statement. The presences fall away, leaving me to stare into jarringly violet eyes. 

_There’s really only one thing I can do in a situation like this._

“Well met, Lady Kemikeru.” I bow deeply, back parallel to the ground. “I am called Aspen, humble servant to the Dawn family. A pleasure to meet you.”

She studies me for a moment, before unexpectedly dipping low to the ground in a deep bow that matches mine. “Charmed. I am called Cynthia Kemikeru, First Daughter of the Kemikeru family, Principal to the Sunset Academy of Magic, and Instructor of Battle Magic. Well met, Servant Aspen.” 

I stare numbly. Her bow and introduction implied that she thought I was her _equal_ — ridiculous. A simple servant matching—

_What game are you playing?_

“Well, now that I’ve finished playing around…class starts in thirty seconds! You guys had better hurry up if you plan to be on time!” 

With that, she disappears with a crack of displaced air.

“We’d better move!” 

…

“Ah-ah-ah. Robin, Selena, Leona…and her Servant, all of you are a few seconds late. I certainly hope that your special accommodation isn’t causing you to be tardy.” Principal-Instructor Kemikeru mocks gleefully. Leona very visibly bites down on a retort as we take our seats in the arena balcony. 

“Now, welcome to another lesson on Battle Magic. Last class, we watched Leona stomp four of her classmates into the ground to prove that a number advantage is only meaningful when brought to bear correctly! By splitting her opponents up and preventing them from using their combined powers, she was able to defeat them with ease! But, of course, she was significantly stronger than those I had her fight against. For a more even battle…Robin, Timothy, and…” A smirk grows on her face. “Selena. You three will fight against Leona.” 

“Oh no…” Selena puts her face in her hands. “I hate this class so much.” 

“Good luck.” I smile slightly. “Although I’m of course inclined to cheer for Lady Leona.” 

“Thanks.” Robin gripes as the two quickly slip out of their seat, making their way down the provided stairs. The other boy, Timothy, follows after them, looking confident. 

_That boy…holds his own sword. But he does not have the demeanor of a mage-knight. In training, perhaps? No, it’s not a mage-blade...hm..._

“Chickens.” Leona mutters, before jumping off the balcony, landing easily within the pit of the Arena. A few seconds later, the rest of them join her, immediately spreading out. 

“Right. Ready, everyone? Then…begin!” 

Leona immediately thrusts her hand down, sending a cloud of dirt blasting up in front of her and obscuring her from sight. Three spells fly wildly into the debris, all clearly missing. My eyes narrow as Leona vaults out from the cloud, high over their heads, and shoots Selena in the back with a beautifully-aimed shot from mid-air. 

The girl goes down as the other two whirl, alerted by the collapse of a comrade, and begin trading rapid spells with her.

**Hehe, she’s quite talented, isn’t she? My favorite student.**

_That she is. Incidentally, you don’t have to put up the ditzy act. Someone with your kind of aura…it’s obvious that it’s just a persona._

**Oh? How interesting. You’re quite young for a ninja, aren’t you?**

_Heh. Younger than you might think, if you’re basing that off of my physical appearance._

**Hm. Tell me, Ninja, why have you come here?**

My mind races. I don’t know if she’s on the side of the Resistance. I can’t say anything about it to her. 

_I’m not here to harm your students, if that is what you are asking. Well…not beyond the typical conduct between you nobles and magi. I have reason to suspect I’ll be dueling at least two students in the near future, though…_

**You obviously don’t want to be drawing attention to yourself…in your position, it’s too dangerous to be moving around. So Alexandria has sent you here. Hm…aha. So that’s what she’s up to? Well, I do owe a favor or three to her. Tell me, which students do you plan on dueling?**

Cautiously optimistic, I consider my answer.

_Before I answer, just how do you know Alexandria?_

**We were old childhood friends. And we’ve fought as comrades in the war. She’s saved my life more than a few times, so I owe her quite a lot.**

_Is that why you treat Leona so well?_

It isn’t even sarcastic. It’s obvious that, despite the teasing, the Principal holds a sort of fondness for the blonde magus. 

**No. Leona’s something special, so I treat her that way. I have a responsibility to teach, after all.**

_But yet you’ll assist me in hurting and/or maiming two of your students?_

**Eh. I play favorites. Now, names?**

_Lucian Ketami._

**Ha! Knew it.**

_…The other student doesn’t matter. Anyone convenient. Preferably someone on the stronger end, but not too insane. Someone I can trick, perhaps. I have to win._

**In that case…pay attention to this fight. Timothy Zateka. He’s an Earth specialist who primarily focuses on physical combat and sword-fighting, so down your kind’s aisle. Kind of a dick. Should be easy enough to manipulate him…**

_Do you have a Clairvoyance? How exactly do you plan to manipulate him?_

**Oh, no. I’m just an extremely experienced communication mage. You’re probably wondering how that’s useful, huh? Well, let me show you.**

I have to admit, I’m quite curious about what she’s got in mind…and doesn’t Robin’s butt look really good in that uniform…?

_Wait, what—_

**Like that.**

_That’s...terrifying. Must be useful, though, as a Principal of an Academy._

**Heh. Anyways…I’ll direct him to you, but you’ll have to do the rest. Understand? You’re on your own after this.**

_Fair. That support alone should be quite useful. Wait, if we start dueling here, will you be using it as a lesson too? In other words, it wouldn’t be private—_

**Most certainly.**

_Ugh. Fair enough. Thank you for your assistance._

**Yes.**

She pulls out of my mind again, leaving me to prepare my plan as Leona gets clipped by a stunning bolt and passes out. 

_She’s definitely stronger than that. Hm..._

…

The opportunity presents itself immediately as Timothy follows Leona in, apparently mocking her. 

“I thought you were the best, but I guess your abilities have been overhyped.” 

“Stick your head in a fireplace.” Leona retorts, still rubbing her head. Ironically, though, her unexpected nap seems to have helped her refresh a little bit. She doesn’t look as tired as she was this morning.

“Your mother must be disappointed with you.” 

The blonde stiffens. 

“Young man.” I say from next to her. “With all due respect…you should shut your mouth before I shut it for you.” 

“You?” He chuckles. “Do not presume to speak in my presence, filthy servant.” 

Leona opens her mouth to retort, but shuts it, glancing at Principal-Instructor Kemikeru.

_Thank you._

“I do not take orders from _boys._ ”

“Dawn.” Timothy grits his teeth. “Teach your servant some manners before I do the job myself.” 

“And how will you do that?” She asks, looking bored.

“I’ll…I’ll _duel_ him.” 

I glance at him. “I don’t think that’s wise. You might get hurt doing something that dangerous.” 

He snarls. “You have infringed on my honor, Servant! I demand satisfaction!” 

_Wow, that was easy…This Principal is definitely someone to watch out for. Anyways, since I have been the one challenged, I am allowed to set the rules._

“I assume you are familiar with Standard Dueling, Ruleset C?” I ask blandly. 

“ _I accept!”_

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” With a crack of displaced air, the Principal-Instructor teleports next to us. “I heard a duel? Class, let’s spectate this duel between Leona’s Servant Aspen and Timothy of the Zateka Family!” 

_She was completely serious about that lesson. Well, I was planning on hiding most of my skill, anyways._

Excited chattering surrounds us. Timothy just glares angrily at me as he goes down the stairs into the pit. 

“Chicken.” I shrug, quickly stripping off the jacket of my uniform and preparing to jump.

“Wait, Servant. Take this.” 

I turn as Leona presents me with a sheathed blade. 

“Thank you, Milady. This is…?”

“One of my old blades. I think you’ll treat it well. Please be careful of him. He’s not terrible.”

I nod. “Thank you for your gift and warning. Now…it’s time.” Turning, I leap off the balcony, weapon in hand, and land in the arena as Timothy appears on the floor.

_Standard Dueling, Ruleset C — no external magic. Fight to unconsciousness, yield, or death._

“If you will be fighting with Ruleset C, you’ll need these!” The Principal-Instructor, having teleported down, tosses a set of four bracelets to both of us. 

“One for each of our limbs, I assume?”

“Yep!”

These are magic-suppressing cuffs. Together, a set of four suppresses an individual’s magic, neatly preventing external usage of magic. We have a few sets back at base, and I’ve confirmed that they also serve to block chakra, but not internal usages such as reinforcement.

_Time to put on a show._

After snapping the four bracelets into place, she locks them with her magic. Then, I shakily draw the blade from the sheath.

_It is a beautiful blade. I’m sorry for what I must do to you._

I carefully stab the sword directly down into the soft dirt, then try to hook the sheath to my sword belt. Intentionally, my fingers fumble, the sheath clattering to the ground. A few giggles sound out from the balcony as I pick it up and try again, only to drop it once more. 

“Truly, you are a pathetic sort.” Timothy mutters, watching in something like offended disbelief. Eventually, I feel the probe of Leona’s magic as she uses telekinesis to pull the sheath back to her. She glares at me, looking seriously affronted.

_I’ll probably have to apologize for that later. She didn’t know the specifics of our little plan, after all._

“I am ready now.” 

“I shall give you one chance, Servant. One chance to surr—“ 

I spit at his feet, then take a very basic, beginner stance. 

“…Very well.” He looks coldly furious. “Then I’m going to show you your place. I’m ready, too.” 

“Let the duel begin!” 

Timothy draws his own sword and races towards me. Awkwardly, I parry as he begins testing at my defenses, being sure to slow my movements down to something believable from a _lowborn_. 

_He’s fast, but…but even so, this isn’t even as fast as Setsuna_ without _her seals. And it’s pretty obvious he’s using magic even to do that. Although fit, none of these younger magi with perhaps the sole exception of Leona have the same kind of fitness level that ninja do._

He’s also, as I come to realize with a minor sense of annoyance, very cautious. I’ve noticed that the sword style of mages tends to favor a heavy skirmishing style, constantly dipping in and out. It’s unlike the typical high-intensity combat I’m more familiar with, and I understand why, even—

_Mages are far more fragile than ninja._

It works out in my favor, though. I let a slash make its way through my weak guard every few exchanges, and he seems to take pleasure in cutting me to pieces a little at a time.

“Is this all you’ve got?” He pulls away, looking almost bored. 

…In lieu of a good response, I spit at him again. 

“Very well.” He says, sighing as he resumes his stance. “It’s only fitting that a disappointment of a mage-knight has a servant equally disappointing in his swordplay.” 

“…Bladework.” I murmur. 

“What?” 

“It’s **bladework** , not **swordplay** _,_ imbecile.” 

“What difference does it make, _lowborn_? They’re the same damn thing.”

“No wonder Leona looks down on the likes of you. You don’t respect anything, not even that which gives you power.”

“…You really do have a death wish, don’t you?” His stance firms up. “Well. I’ll grant it.” 

His first slash knocks my sword out of my hand, and the second moves to stab through my chest— 

I catch the sword in my right hand and snap it with chakra-enhanced strength, then lunge forward to catch the surprised, horrified trainee with the other—

He rises, too stunned to resist as I lift him into the air, and my right arm grips his other side as he floats up—

I step forward with enough force to crack the ground underneath my feet, then _hurl_ him down into the earth with crushing force, sending dirt flying everywhere.

“And with that astonishing finish, Leona’s Servant, Aspen, is the winner of this Duel! …And I should probably give that kid some medical attention…any healers in the audience? I’ve got some practice for you...!” 

Shaking my head, I retrieve my blade before using the stairs to return to the balcony.

_“Make a big spectacle out of it. Bait someone into challenging you into a duel. Pretend like you’ve got no idea what’s really going on. Act stupid.”_

_“Look weak at first. I want everyone watching to think that you’re a weak, defenseless commoner who’s only made it this far on luck. I want them to question whether or not you’re truly Leona’s Servant, and how you could have possibly gotten the position.”_

_“Then, when things seem impossible for you, change course. End the fight abruptly, with violence. Don’t kill or maim them, but inflict violent injury on them. Don’t go overboard, though. A single calculated instance of violence, fast enough so that the average magus isn’t able to understand it.”_

_“By doing that, you’ll inspire one of two reactions. Either you’ll inspire a healthy dose of fear and trepidation, or else the students will brush it aside as simple luck, or perhaps a trick. That will be his warning.”_

…

“H-Holy shit.” Robin greets me. 

“T-That was…” Selena whimpers.

“Fucking awesome.” Leona says gleefully, silently jabbing her wand at me. The tears in my clothing slowly knit themselves together. 

I shrug, feeling the magic wash over me as I return the blade to its rightful owner. “Sending a message, that’s all.” 

“Ah! You’re hurt, aren’t you? I can help heal you!” The pinkette rushes out, slipping her wand out of her hand. 

“Thank you for the thought,” I start gratefully— 

“Huh?! You’re…not injured at all?” 

“It’d appear that perhaps I have more magic than some casting certain aspirations on me might have thought at first.” I mutter, injecting bitterness into my voice. “As someone’s mother might know—“

“Silence, servant.” Leona cuts in, a dangerous look on her features. 

_Perfect._

“…Scary…” Selena murmurs under her breath. It would seem that she’s picked on the darker mood that has suddenly settled in.

“Well, enough about that!” Robin interjects. “Why were you just playing around with him the whole time if you were capable of doing something like that!?”

“…Because I thought it would be funny—“

“The real reason!” 

I shrug. “It’s easier to defeat an opponent who believes you to be no threat at all.” 

“And that is precisely the lesson I’d wished to impart on my beloved students!” Principal-Instructor Kemikeru shouts happily from besides us.

_And that’s complete bullshit! You had no idea what I was going to do! Right...?_

“When the option is available to you, making your opponent think you are weaker than you are is a completely viable strategy! Servant Aspen here managed to turn the tables on his opponent and defeat him in the span of merely a few moments. There’s another lesson to be learned, as well! It’s that you should practice your internal magics, too! Magic is the greatest of all strength equalizers…and very few people can cast a spell fast enough to stop someone from punching them in the face at point-blank range! I want you all to reflect on what you’ve seen today, in both of the battles! Class dismissed! Get out of here while I take our fallen student to the Hospital!”

_I have to admit, though, I can admire that kind of talent for unadulterated bullshit._

…

Nothing particularly interesting happens in Earth Elemental Training. Robin is the worst of the trio, as anticipated with his opposing element. Selena is actually fairly close to the top alongside Leona, who ranks slightly lower.

Lunch passes by simply enough — we simply retreat to the Center’s Rooftop, enjoying our time together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this chapter, almost all of my side stories can get updated. Woohooooooo!


	107. (4.3.6) Sunset, Part 6

#  **4.3.6 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Sunset, Part Six**

“Hey, Aspen. Doesn’t it feel like people are sorta…staring at you now?” Selena whispers to me as we walk to our next class.

“A little.” I mutter quietly. “I knew it would happen, but it’s still annoying.”

“You don’t like the attention either, huh…?” She muses. 

_For more reasons than one._

“Yes.”

….

After classes, Leona and I make our way over to the Principal-Instructor’s office. It’s on the top floor of the Administrative Office, fittingly enough. Contrary to my expectations, though, upon being invited in and entering, the room that is revealed to us proves to be simple and functional.

“It has to be like this…at least, whenever Leona visits.” Principal-Instructor Kemikeru says, apparently anticipating my reaction. “Otherwise, she tries to steal everything that isn’t bolted down.” 

“I see.” I say blankly. “Would you mind securing the room?” 

She sighs. “Right to business, huh?” With a careless gesture, the doors and windows transform into a solid wall. I can feel a series of wards spring up around them, although ascertaining their intent fails.

“I don’t mind playing around sometimes, Principal-Instructor. But anything like that is overshadowed by uncertainty. How did you know what I was?”

She smiles. “Well…I had a suspicion. The timing was so very strange, you see. Surely you’re aware of the fact that Arcacian forces are invading your country as we speak?”

“Of course I am.”

“You may be interested to note that this school also hosts Mage Knight training. A few of them were borrowed for the initial invasion.”

_I do not like where this is going._

“We lent them three mage-knight trainees. Some of our better ones, too.”

_Three? I only remember two, but…oh, no…when I lost track of the mages after they destroyed my territory…_

“Only one returned. And he gave me quite the interesting story, although I had to pull most of it directly from his mind as he was already dying from core breakdown.” 

“…I see.” I say evenly. 

“Unfortunately, pulling the story from his mind wound up taking the last of his strength and killing him.” She admits. 

“And what exactly was the story you learned?” I ask cautiously, silently relieved at the news of his death.

“The army he was assigned to was supposed to raze the civilian border villages Kitamori and Oshiroikishi before joining up with the rest of the section. They had no real resistance with the former, finding and killing eight ninja, but the latter was where things went terribly wrong. The synergetic spell was somehow internally disrupted before the rest of the army was systematically taken apart, including by some kind of massive chakra technique that killed half the army in a single strike. That mage-knight was relatively near ground-zero of the impact, and escaped by tearing a hole in the enemy barriers.” 

_I must have missed him. He must have left almost immediately to escape — damn! When the barrier shattered, that was him, rather than the backlash from Falling Star. It had seemed strange, but I hadn’t questioned it…_

“What do you plan to do with that information?” I ask, tense. 

_If she personally knew the two mage-knights…ah, hell. Leona does, doesn’t she?_

I glance sideways at the girl in question. Her usually expressive face is completely and utterly blank.

“Well…” She drawls. “I’ll…Honestly? I wasn’t planning on doing anything about it at all.” She leans back, clearly basking in the surprise that I can’t fully hide. “I warned each and every one of my potential mage-knights of the potential consequences. Isn’t that right, Leona?” 

“You beat us to an inch of our lives.” She murmurs flatly. 

“Exactly! So for them to go off and get killed in an invasion…well, it’s tragic, but they’re all adults.” She says, shrugging. Leona flinches.

“…I see.” 

She smiles. “Your secret is safe with me, so long as you don’t kill anyone within the school boundaries. I’d have to take notice of that. That being said…if you harm one of the students I actually like — Leona, especially—“ 

“I’d _never_ hurt Leona.” 

“Not even if it meant the completion of your miss—“ 

“ _Never_.” I retort evenly. Leona stiffens. 

“Then it seems like we have no real conflict, ninja.” She shrugs, and the ward around us collapses, the doors and windows reappearing.

“Now get out! I’m a busy woman!” 

“Thank you.” I bow deeply. But before I turn to leave, her voice rings out in my head. 

**Just one thing, Servant.**

_Yes?_

**You’re aware that Lucian Ketami has been bullying Leona, of course. There’s little I can do about it from my end, due to the political power his family wields and my own position within the school, but…as for you? I want you to crush him.**

_Oh, I‘m already planning on it._

**Good.**

_Just out of curiosity…because I genuinely don’t understand…can you spell it out for me? Exactly why do you favor Leona so much? Obviously, I’m a bit attached to her myself, but I’m sure my reasons differ from yours._

**That girl is the daughter I wish I could have had. Do you understand now?**

_…Intellectually, yes. I think I do. Thank you for clarifying._

**Haha. Now go.**

Leona and I exit the classroom. 

…

“Come with me, Servant.” Leona begins walking away at a fast pace, heading towards the stairwell. 

“As you command, Milady. Where to?”

“Home.”

“Nothing to do, this afternoon?”

“Mage-knight training. I’m not attending.” 

I nod slowly. 

_That’s right…the odds of her having known either of the mage-knights we killed, Anna and Senia, as well as that third unnamed mage-knight…are quite high._

_…There’s a chance I’ve killed one of her friends._

The walk to the Warp Matrix is quiet, very quiet. 

…

“…Where is this?” 

As I open my eyes, I realize that this isn’t the stone and wood of the Resistance hideout. No, my surroundings are far more ornate — _is that real gold? —_ as if we’re in a real noble’s mansion. I can feel the heavy weight of magic settling over my shoulders. Wherever we are is intensely warded. 

“Home. Real home.” 

“I see.” 

“Welcome home, Milady!” A black-haired maid rushes into the room. “Do you have need of anything?”

“Not particularly, thank you, Madeleine.” 

Madeleine bows. “And I see you’ve brought a young man home…could this perhaps be Aspen Dawn? I take it the retrieval was successful?”

I bow. “Well met, Madeleine. I am called Aspen, second child and first son of the Dawn Family. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

The maid stares owlishly, flushing, and I belatedly realize that I’ve just extended a formal greeting to someone who’s supposed to be below me in status…so I was supposed to use a more casual greeting. 

“U-Um, it’s…it’s nice to meet you too!” She curtsies hastily. “Please forgive me for my lack of manners, sir, I’m afraid I don’t know the proper protocol…” 

“No, it was my mistake. Please, there’s no need to apologize.” 

“Brother.” Leona sighs exasperatedly. “Please stop seducing the maid.” 

“Milady!” Madeleine shrieks, blushing scarlet. 

I open my mouth to respond, but her magic washes over me, rendering me unable to make a sound for a moment. 

“Come!” She grabs my hand and drags me out of the room. As I go, I wave to the maid, who shyly waves back.

_It doesn’t hurt to be in with the help._

We travel through well-maintained, decorated hallways filled with framed pictures and delicate artifacts, up a glossy staircase, and into a room.

“I sense that you have something on your mind.” I murmur, levity lost as she pulls me into what seems to be her room. With a muttered spell, Leona closes the door and seals the room. 

It’s pretty simple, actually. There’s a few scattered things throughout the room — a staff in one corner, a variety of swords in the other, some various baubles, a handful of pictures of her family…it’s clearly lived-in, but yet it isn’t…

_It isn’t feminine. And it’s not very personal, either. But yet…this is the place she considers her ‘real home’. So this is just how she is?_

“Yeah…” She moves over to her bed, takes a seat. “We need to talk about…this afternoon. Please…sit.”

“You knew them, didn’t you?” I ask softly, doing as she asks and taking a seat next to her. She glances down, her hands in her lap. 

“I was acquainted with them all, but...Anna. She was…the closest thing to a mentor that I had.”

I close my eyes. 

_I should have known, from the very second I learned that Leona was a mage-knight, that this could have been a problem. Gods damn it._

“I…I know that it was just…you didn’t have much of a choice. It was a battle. War. You were protecting thousands of civilians, trying to stop them from being all cut down, and Anna was on the other end, having consented to doing that exact thing. I know she struggled with the decision, because the last conversation I had with her about it was...trying to convince her not to do it. But even knowing the path she took…I’m still…I would have liked to talk to her.” 

Her hands curl into fists, fingernails digging into her palms. 

“Please, Yuki. Tell me…tell me how she died.” 

“You know most of the story.” I murmur. “It was war. Our goal was to eliminate the entire enemy army to prevent them from warning their country, and to ensure a safe evacuation for the civilians. Numbers were four to four hundred. They started a synergetic spell, a spell that would have covered the entire town in snow and ice. I infiltrated the spell, disrupted it, then had Mari and I attack them directly while the other two retreated temporarily. Together, we wiped a quarter of their forces, then our teammate successfully killed over half of the remainder with a widespread qi technique.”

“Then, Mari and I fought the final group, which included the two mage-knights and their commander. I engaged the commander, but Anna moved to protect him and bought him time to retreat. She was…quite skilled. We fought against each other alone for a while before Mari joined up with me, and her partner joined up with her. After that, the fight ended fairly fast. We split them up again, then I managed to poison her with a localized paralytic, disrupting her breathing, and killed her shortly after. It was a quick death. Relatively painless, I think.” 

I trail off, unsure what to say. 

“Thank you.” She whispers quietly, a bit pale.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

She nods. 

“I think I just need some time to think about everything. Let’s…we have a Warp Matrix here, to return to base. You can hang out with Mari or…well, my mother is currently at the school running mage-knight practice, so not her…I just have to process all of this.”

“Understood.” Guilt wells up within me. 

…

“Are you alright, Yuki?” Mari asks, upon seeing the look on my face. “You don’t look good.”

“Leona knew one of the mage-knights we killed.” Something occurs to me, and the blood drains out of my face. “Fuck.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

_‘My mother is currently at the school running mage-knight practice.’_

“Alexandria…she must have known _all three of them_. She is the mage-knight commander…Fuck!” 

“Oh. That’s not good.” Mari sighs, taking a seat on the bed. “So…wait and see?” 

“Pretty much.” Unprompted, I sit down next to her. She sighs softly, leaning over to hug me. 

“You know, don’t you? We didn’t really have a choice. Not without putting everyone else at risk.”

“I know.” I say quietly. “That isn’t the problem. I don’t feel guilty about killing them. They had committed to the murder of thousands, had hundreds of innocents on their hands already. I feel far worse about what I’ve taken away from Leona.”

“Ah.” Mari breathes. “I’m afraid I’m not sure how to help you with that…how did she react when she found out?”

“She was totally blank when she found out. After, she dragged me to her home — her _real_ home — and asked me about what happened. Told me that the mage-knight I killed, Anna…that she was like a mentor to her. She asked, specifically…how she died. And I told her. She said to give her some time alone.” 

She squeezes a little tighter. “That’s all you can do for now. Just give her the space she needs.”

“I know. Thank you, though.” I sigh. “I’m also worried about Alexandria’s reaction…if she doesn’t already know.”

“There’s nothing you can do about it now.” Mari murmurs. “We will just wait and see.” 

_I’m just worried about what that waiting will bring._

…

I feel marginally better by the time Leona returns to base — she immediately makes her way towards me, an unreadable look on her face.

“Hey, Yuki. Can we talk a bit?”

“Of course.” 

I follow her into her room, more than a bit concerned. 

“You don’t have to look so tense.” She says quietly, turning to face me. “I’m not mad. And I’ve gone through most of my grieving.” 

“So quickly?”

She smiles slightly, expression bereft of its usual warmth. “I’m past the anger, at least.” 

“…I see. I do have something I should return to you…of hers.” 

“You…you do?” She asks uncertainly. 

Wordlessly, I unseal the pieces of Anna’s mage-blade, offering it to her. 

“This is…oh!” Her hands trace reverently over the metal, over the faded scratches in what’s left of the hilt. “I…thank you, Yuki. This…I’d been looking for something like this. An artifact of hers. Now I can…” 

She trails off, looking embarrassed. “I can…send her off properly.”

I study her thoughtfully. “Leona…are you religious?” 

She flushes. “I…yes. Most mages are. I know you’re probably…it isn’t really a…something that makes _sense_ , logically, but—“

“You don’t have to explain yourself.” I interject. “I understand. Faith…” I trail off, thinking about Mari’s own proclivities, and the faith I carry myself, entrusted to my team. “It isn’t a bad thing.” 

She smiles slightly. “Thank you. For…for not making fun of me.” 

I return the expression. “There’s plenty of other things for me to make fun of you about.” 

“Hey!” 

_Mages on the battlefield probably have a similar life expectancy to our own — worse, even, given the difference in quality. If you grow up expecting to lose most of the people around you…_

…

Trouble strikes right outside our room. 

“Daughter.” 

“Erm. Yes…Mother?”

_Oh. This is…this is a problem._

“Why weren’t you at mage-knight training today?” 

She winces. 

“I—“ 

“Spare the excuses.” Alexandria storms past her daughter, slamming the door to her room, eyes searching— 

_Not good._

“A mage-blade…?” She asks thoughtfully. “A broken…ah.” A pause. “Ah…” 

Leona cringes. 

“I’d wondered when that would come up.” She turns around. “Carry on, then.”

“…wha?”

“I knew. Who do you think cleared those three mage-knights as fit for combat at the border? For anyone in the know, it’s obvious what happened. Seeing that—“ She gestures vaguely at the shattered shards on Leona’s desk, “That just confirms what I already suspected.” 

I stare numbly as she turns away, apparently completely unconcerned. 

“…She took that a lot better than I thought she would.” Leona murmurs. 

…

**“Yuki.”**

Alexandria’s telepathic voice startles me as I return to my room, having finished my preparations for tomorrow. 

_“Yes?”_

**“Tomorrow evening, the requisite leaders will arrive. We can begin properly planning after your classes end and you two return to base. Finish up your work at the school by then.”**

_“Understood.”_

...

“So that’s how it is, huh?” I smile, looking down at my wand.

_As it turns out, qi techniques aren’t the only thing you can enhance with Etheria._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want some stuff to read? You should check out my side-stories!  
> Like Mari? She has her own side story now called Fantasia.  
> Like Setsuna? Check out The Magus and the Maid and Unchained!  
> Like Carlyle? She'll be getting her own side story called Masquerade very shortly...  
> Like Hikaru? Defiance beckons.  
> Like Sayaka? She has multiple segments in Spellbook!  
> Like literally anyone? Team Dragon calls! 
> 
> On a more Spellborne-related note, school's almost over, and with it will come the end of Yuki's playtime in Arcacia.


	108. (4.3.7) Sunset, Part 7

#  **4.3.7 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Sunset, Part Seven**

The next day, we arrive early to the campus so that Leona can practice her Water magic on the roof of the Center before the sunrise comes up. Eventually she tires herself out, and we begin going down the stairways and hallways to meet up with Robin and Selena.

“You’re a surprisingly competent Water magus, given your primary element..” 

Leona smiles. “I like healing, and you have to be a competent Water User to have any real aptitude for it, so…”

“So how come you’re such a weaker Earth magus if you’re so good at reinforcement?”

She pouts. 

“I trained reinforcement for reinforcement instead of earth for reinforcement. Also, I just don’t like earth.” 

“Fair.” I acquiesce. Earth is my second-worst element, too, although it’s more accurate to say that I just don’t have a need to learn it when I have Ice, a superior element in virtually every way. 

“You two sure look comfortable.” A masculine voice drawls. Instantly, Leona’s face hardens. 

“Lucian.”

A shiver of excitement runs through my body as a tall, attractive black-haired male shimmers into the visual spectrum, apparently having been leaning invisibly against the wall.

_So this is the fly I was sent to swat?_

“…Were you really just waiting there for Leona…Lord Ketami?” I insincerely ask at the last moment. It’s hard to hide how much I’d like to send him through the wall.

_Something about him is extremely off-putting._

He doesn’t even spare me a glance. “I see that you’re being favored by the Principal yet again.”

Leona very unsubtly steps on my foot. “It is the wish of my mother.” 

He sniffs. “Not like that’s ever stopped you from doing what you please. Or you would have been kicked off the mage-knight squad after not showing up for training yesterday… _again._ But you’re mommy’s perfect princess, aren’t you?” 

Leona’s teeth grind together.

_Missing training was that big of a deal? Leona…no, I can’t blame her. Not after what she learned._

“I’ve earned my spot in the squad. I’m the strongest mage-knight we have.”

“Really?” He asks faux-interestedly. “On whose account? Oh, that’s right. Your mother’s. Funny that, really…because you can’t beat me. You never have.” 

“That’s because you cheat with your Clairvoyance.” She snaps. He tsks condescendingly. 

“There’s no such thing as cheating. It’s just skill and talent...and who are you to complain? You’ve been blessed yourself.” 

Leona doesn’t have a good response to that. He steps up, smiling darkly. 

“You, servant. Leave us.”

Before I can react, his wand is raised and jabbed at me. I feel his magic wash over me, trying to take hold of me, and shake it off without moving.

“Hm? You don’t seem affected by my powers…?”

_I knew it._

Ketami’s powers revolve around his Clairvoyance, making his illusions far less detectable and incredibly subtle compared to your average magus. But Clairvoyance isn’t some ridiculous, impossible power. It’s just a different way of viewing the world, like how that man could sniff out people’s affinities, and how Leona can see others’ Mindscapes, or something reasonably close to them.

His Clairvoyance doesn’t give him powerful illusions. It allows him to see the world his target sees, and thus achieves a level of perfect immersion that no imagination could match. But without my Ice Aberration, something that sticks with me far more permanently than my sight…he can’t add that to his imprint, and so his illusion, lacking that critical detail, washes off me. Or perhaps it’s the Blood Vow I’ve sworn. Or even my own tampering with my soul. Or all of it. Whatever it is, there’s enough that’s completely foreign to his own worldview for it to be impossible to empathize with it. 

_At least, now that I know how it works. His illusions could have and_ **_did_ ** _work before I began suspecting just how his Clairvoyance worked, but now? Now I’m effectively immune. And Leona has something similar she can use — her_ **_own_ ** _Clairvoyance!_

“Cast magic on me again, magus, and I will move to defend myself properly. Consider that your first and last warning.”

“Aspen…don’t.” Leona says quietly, Ketami glaring coldly at me. With a start, I realize that she’s _pleading_ for me to stop.

“…As you command, Milady.” 

“Good girl.” His hand rises up, lands on her hair, and begins petting it. Leona stiffens, but doesn’t react as he intimately caresses her. 

Ice snakes through my veins as my mind flashes back, a friend being touched against her will. Violated. If he takes this further, I may not be able to restrain myself. Thankfully, he backs off after a moment, apparently unwilling to do anything further with a voyeur. 

_Or...no, I understand, I think. If he really tried anything like that, Leona would probably snap and kill him. It’s just a power play...I hope, for his sake._

“At lunch, Leona. You know where to come. _Alone._ ” He stalks off, spinning away and heading downstairs. 

“Why, Leona?” I ask, once I’m sure he’s out of range.

“…Why, what?” She trembles, her fists clenching together.

“Why do you let him do this to you?” 

“You think I—!” She spins angrily, her wand snapping into her hand, but quickly forces herself to calm down as she forces the meaning of my words through her brain. “Politics. He’s very powerful politically as a Heir from an Ancient Family. Alexandria’s powerful in her own right, but it’s just that — power. She has some economic and political strength as a result, and even some popularity and status from her war hero status, but it’s not even close. His family…is only a few steps removed from royalty.”

“What happens if you kill him?”

She flinches. “If…if I did that…Mother might go to jail. She’d certainly be disgraced. I don’t think she’d go quietly…so she’d take me and run, but…our lives would effectively be over. It isn’t worth it.” 

_Why didn’t Alexandria mention that particular consequence to me? Does she not care? Did she forget? What, exactly?_

“I see. And if you simply embarrass him by utilizing those pranks you are so fond of?”

“…There’s nothing I can do to him that’s worse than what he can do to me. Do you understand? Imagine if he tricked me into thinking that he was my lover.” 

“…Are you positive he hasn’t already yet done such a thing?” 

“My mother would murder him. But it’d be too late by then, and I do not want to push him.”

“A fine line, then…” I mutter. “Is he truly stronger than you?”

She shakes her head. “He underestimates me. Very badly.” 

“Why not just duel him, then?”

“If I…to beat his illusions, I would have to go all-out.” She shakes her head. “Well beyond the limits of any reasonable duel…or even a fight where I’d want to keep my opponent alive. The kinds of spells I’d be throwing out...they would be ones inherently designed to be fatal.”

“And you don’t want to kill him.” 

“Exactly. And…accepting a duel from him, fighting to win…it would be tantamount to premeditated murder. I…I don’t want that.” 

“I understand. However, Milady…I do not have any such reservations.”

“…I won’t have you kill him for me.” She glances at me. “That would be the same thing as me doing it myself.”

I smile darkly. “Oh, don’t you worry. If I kill him, it’ll be for my own reasons, not yours.”

_It just so happens that most of our reasons line up._

“You can’t, though.” She murmurs. “The same political reasons that stop me from doing it apply to you, too.” 

“For now.” I whisper under my breath.

_But in our upcoming confrontation? I’m going to crush him like a bug._

…

“No. Stay.”

“With all due respect, Milady, I **insist**.”

“…What exactly do you plan to do?” She spins on her heel, stopping me as I follow her. “We’ve already talked about this. There’s little I can do about this but do what he wants so he doesn’t get mad and do something I’ll have to really hurt him for.”

“You could just not go.” 

“Are you guys talking about _Lucian_?” Robin spits the name out.

“Leona’s trying to meet him _alone._ ” 

_“What!?”_

“It’s none of your guys’ business!” Leona shouts angrily. 

“Do either of you know what the place they’ll be meeting is? Apparently they already have a place arranged.” 

“Yes. Lunchtime, right? They’ll be meeting behind the Library, if it’s the same place as always.” 

_This has happened enough to the point that Selena knows—_

“Selena!” Leona hisses, as Robin slips behind her, raising his wand. I nod at him. “Why’d you—“ 

Silently, a spell flies off the tip of his wand, sinking into her back and sending her into dreamland. I lean forward, catching her as she collapses. 

“Thank you.” I say gratefully. “Selena, Robin, could I ask that you watch over her this lunch period?”

She nods sharply. “Of course. I’m no Lucian, but my illusions aren’t half bad. We’ll hide here.”

“And what will you do, Aspen?” Robin asks. “She’s already explained to us before…we can’t do much against him. It’ll just come back to bite her.” 

“…I could.” Selena admits. “My family’s about on par with his. But I’m not strong enough to defeat him.” 

“I’m not going to drag you guys into this if I can avoid it.” I assert. “It’s our problem, now. I’m going to take her place.”

“Aspen, he might…he might seriously kill you.” Selena murmurs. “As…with your position, you won’t be protected, and…”

“If he tries, I’ll paint the walls with his blood.” I promise. “But…he won’t do any such thing. My status shall protect me.” 

“…Your status as Leona’s Servant?” Robin asks, confused.

“No. My status as Leona’s brother, as the first son of the Dawn family.”

“…Wait…no way…”

“We’ll talk later. No time, now.” Without another word, I depart down the stairs, making my way to the meeting spot. 

…

“You…are not Leona.” 

“No. But I shall suffice as you naturally wished to speak to her about family business, did you not? After all, I certainly can’t think of a legitimate reason that you would call out the Dawn Heiress to a secluded spot, alone. Threaten her, even.” I cross my arms. “In which case…all such matters can be passed on through me.”

“I shall not _talk_ to her servant about any matters at all. Begone before I lose my patience and _make_ you.” 

“Her servant?” I ask. “I do not see her servant anywhere. It is simply the two of us. You, the Heir to the Ketami Family…and I, the first son of the Dawn Family, the Reserve Heir, Aspen Dawn.”

“You—“ He rears back, dark eyes assessing. “The rumors were true after all?”

_I can’t believe that shit worked._

“They were.” I smile darkly. “It’s a bit of a surprise, really, how accurate hearsay is here. I wouldn’t have thought the rumors were true that you would stoop so low as to bully my sister, the Heiress of the Dawn Family. But you have. Right in front of me, incidentally.”

He stares defiantly at me, eyes calculating.

“But what have you to gain from this? What does the Ketami family have to gain from you staining your character so?” 

“What does the Dawn family have to gain from her running rampant in the Sunset Academy? Abusing authority? Upsetting the system? Exploiting the favor of her instructors for special privileges?” His voice turns hard. “As a mage-knight, she more than anyone else should understand the responsibilities of her position. Yet, with all the advantages she possesses…she wastes them, throws them away.” 

I raise an eyebrow. “What does it matter to you if she throws away what is hers? I’ll humor your argument for a moment and say that she is wasting her opportunities when all my experience with her has told me the exact opposite. So, what does it matter to you if she does that?”

“Perhaps you don’t understand how our society works.” He says bitingly. “Understandable, given your extended time away from real civilization. Every position she carries — from her position as a mage-knight to teacher’s pet — is something that she’s taken from someone else who could have taken greater advantage of it. No teacher can have two favorite students.”

_It’s interesting, in a way. Leona and Ketami…they share the exact same viewpoint. But, well…I sympathize with one more than the other._

“Should those vying for her position simply not just _work harder?_ If they’re truly deserving of the position, then they should prove it. Whether through a duel, through grades, or some other means.”

His eyes narrow. “It’s too late for that. The opportunities have closed since she’s already taken them.”

“Then those people should have worked harder.” I say simply. “Taken the opportunities from the very beginning.”

“Leona barely tries during mage-knight practice!”

_Aha. No rebuttal, eh?_

“Bored, most likely. She certainly works her ass off when I see her.” I pause. “You should tell those interested parties to try becoming powerful in their own right rather than staring at her back...or trying to drag her down to their level.”

“I _am_ powerful!” He snarls. “More powerful than she is!”

“And yet Leona is ahead of you in all but two aspects.” I tilt my head. It would seem that our veiled pretenses and vague references have come to an end. “Yet her captain rates her above you.”

“Favoritism.” He spits out. “I can trounce her in a duel. She’s blind if she truly thinks—“

“Or perhaps you are the one who is blind. Your Clairvoyance is not unbeatable.” I smile maliciously. “I wonder how you would fare against someone immune to it? I wonder how Leona would?”

My grin widens. “If I went ahead and taught her how to counter your Clairvoyance the way I have...?”

For a moment, a glimmer of real fear passes through his eyes. 

“You can’t. It’s...only someone far more powerful or experienced—“

“Clearly you don’t surpass Leona in the intelligence department.” He bristles. “I’m relatively new to magic, after all. But it isn’t that hard for someone of...clear sight...to understand just how your magic works. Or even simply for someone who truly understands the Second Sight. You aren’t an illusion genius. Your clairvoyance merely allows you to sympathize with your target to create near-flawless illusions.”

He flinches.

“Knowing that...it really wasn’t hard to come up with a counter.” I smile brightly. “Well, I’m sure Leona won’t mind you much once she can shut you down.” 

I turn to walk away.

“What do you want?”

Out of his sight, I smile. “I was abandoned by my family at a young age for apparently being unable to perform magic. Only recently did they realize their error. But still, they do not really care. They think I am content to be Leona’s servant. I need to prove myself to them. And you have a reputation...but without your greatest strength, I doubt you’ll provide much challenge at all.”

He grits his teeth.

“So...duel me. We’ll make it a big spectacle. I want you to go all out so I can crush you. Win or lose, I’ll swear a vow never to knowingly tell anyone the counter that I learned. But if you run away from this fight? I’ll tell everyone in the school.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to clarify that Lucian doesn't sexually harass or assault Leona when he drags her out (this has happened before). 
> 
> Humiliate her thoroughly? Hit her, if he's really angry? Well, that much he can and does do.


	109. (4.3.8) Sunset, Part 8

#  **4.3.8 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Sunset, Part Eight**

_“Servant!”_ An outraged feminine voice shrieks. Leona turns the corner, seeing the two of us. “What the hell—“

“Standard Ruleset A.” Lucian interjects, cutting a horrified Leona off.

_No restrictions duel. First to yield, incapacitation, or death._

“I accept.”

“Wha...? Aspen, you...!”

“Shut up.” I say bluntly, making my way closer to her. “You don’t get to call the shots anymore just because Mother made you Heiress and forgot about me. I’m tired of being treated like shit — of constantly praising and supporting you.”

My hand grabs her by the collar, pulling her close...and more importantly, ensures Ketami can’t read my lips.

_“Play along.”_

“I...Aspen, you know I always wanted you to return! I...I never agreed with how Mother treated you!” Tears spring up at the corners of her eyes.

“You coward.” I hiss. “Mother dotes on you. If you had really, truly pled for her to bring me back, she would have. But you never tried. You were too worried about your place as Heiress...after all, Leona, the oldest child here isn’t you, is it?”

She sniffles. “You don’t...you don’t understand...Mother is...”

I shove her, sending her to the ground. “I’ll play along with this charade for a little longer. But if you interfere in this duel, I swear I’ll kill you. Stay out of this!”

Then I spin, facing Ketami, who’s absorbed the sight in front of him with calculating eyes. “No, I’d best not even give you the chance. Ketami, Battle Magic is next class and I know you’re in it with us. You will call Leona out. I’ll defend her honor and then we’ll duel. Do it in the beginning before class starts. Understand? Or else.”

“I will. I’ll have that vow from you now, though.”

Fine.” I say simply, drawing my wand.

“On my magic, I swear that I shall not knowingly divulge the secret to Lucian Ketami’s Clairvoyance to anyone, so long as he duels me in the agreed upon time and place. Lightbringer, please bind this vow to me.” 

“On my magic, I swear that I shall duel Aspen of the Dawn family at the agreed upon location, so long as he makes every reasonable effort to do the same. Lightbringer, please bind this vow to me.”

_Well, that’s that loophole closed. I didn’t expect it to work, but still…_

“So we are agreed. Class starts in twenty. Prepare yourself.”

He inclines his head, then departs.

“...Is he gone?” She asks.

“Yes. And there is no one in the nearby vicinity.”

“Good. Aspen. I played along because I trusted you, but what the hell—?”

“Call Alexandria.”

“...huh?”

“Hurry up. I have less than twenty minutes to actualize the plan I improvised. Do it!”

...

“You called?” Alexandria asks evenly, standing in front of me.

“Yes. I need to borrow your sword.” 

A flicker of surprise runs through her eyes even as she seamlessly unhooks the sheath and hands it to me. She understands that calling her here, teleportation or otherwise, means that I’m under a time restriction.

_Aphelion? May I wield you for a while?_

**Why do you have need of me?**

_A duel lies ahead, but I can’t use my true powers. I must instead rely almost entirely on my magic, which is insufficiently trained._

**A duel? Against a mere child, it seems? Fine, I shall permit you this favor…but I expect you to take me into true battle later, Cold One.**

_I intend to._

**Very well, then. I shall assist you.**

_My thanks, Aphelion._

**You are welcome.**

“He accepts my purpose.” I murmur. “Thank you, Alexandria.”

“It is time, then?” She asks.

I nod in confirmation. “It shall be quick. One thing, though, is it possible to change the form of this sword, or disguise it in some way? I don’t want people to recognize—” 

The blade suddenly warps of its own volition, becoming a simple, undecorated blade. 

_Are you...do you still possess the same function like this?_

**I do.**

“Well...” I breathe out. “This is perfect.” 

_..._

“So you’re here, Leona?” Lucian immediately follows through on his vow the second we step into the stands. “I’m surprised.”

She ignores him. “Servant, do not let me down.”

“Understood, Milady.”

“I see you were cowardly enough to make your servant fight for—“

The metallic ring of Leona’s mage-blade leaving its sheath cuts him off. She raises the sword into the air and slams it down into the ground—

Magic _bursts_ out of her, intense enough to be a physical presence that heats the air around her and compelling me to kneel from its sheer presence. I’m barely able to resist, but many of the students around me aren’t able to resist the siren call of a magic that far surpasses anything they’re capable of, falling hard to their knees. Wind ripples away from her as her skin glows and her hair floats, such is the intensity of the power she channels. 

_This is…the single most imposing presence I’ve ever felt in my life!_

Certainly, there have been far more powerful and intimidating people. Hikaru, Katsuo, Daisuke, Alexandria — even Mari and that Wind User she fought in her promotion exams. But…never have I felt them flare their full strength as openly as this before. And in this moment, were I of weaker will, perhaps I _would_ find myself on bended knee. As it is, though, I’m able to stay standing with sheer force of will.

Eventually, Leona restrains her power once more, pulling her sword from the earth.

“Call me a coward again, Lucian, and _politics_ —“ she spits the word out, “They will not save you. That is a promise.”

For a moment, the only sound that can be heard is the metallic sliding of her blade as it is gently pressed back into her sheath. Then she whirls around, eyes blazing with latent magic. I meet her gaze head-on, back straight.

“Servant.”

“Milady.” 

“Crush him.” 

“As you wish.” 

“You heard her.” I say blandly to Ketami. “Let’s go down to the arena so I can crush you.” 

“…Standard Ruleset A.” He confirms coolly. His eyes dip briefly to my waist, noting the blade that had not been there before, then back to my eyes.

“Accepted.” I agree.

He stiffly spins on his heel, walking towards the closest stairs. I quickly make my way down to the other side, idly listening to Robin and Selena begin harassing Leona for her little display. 

_I’m sorry to drag you into this, Aphelion. Politics is never interesting, but sadly necessary at this current point in time._

**Your apology is accepted. You and I both know that swords are not meant to be played with.**

I smile briefly.

_Indeed._

**Then hurry and end this farce so that you may wield me in true combat.**

_Understood. I just need to make a point._

And with that, I step out in front of the crowd of dozens. Lucian stares at me coolly, his wand held loosely in his hand. 

“Are both participants ready?!”

We both flash an affirmative, making sure we’re twenty meters away, as is standard. My hand slips to the hilt at my waist. 

“Then...” Wards flare up around us, ensuring that there’s no backlash. Good. I need those for what I have planned. 

_Ready?_

**Go, User.**

“Let the duel begin!”

Ketami opens his mouth to say something. A spell incantation, perhaps, or maybe he just wants to taunt me. Aphelion flashes out of its sheath, a burst of raw energy rippling from the blade and racing towards my opponent. Surprised, he barely manages to block it, and his shield buckles under the strain, sending him skidding back. Unluckily, though, he’s unharmed, just very surprised.

_That’s fine! That wasn’t meant to end the fight! It’s just to trick him into taking this seriously!_

He launches a silent Fire projectile, clearly intent on testing my defenses, and I respond by meeting it with Aphelion, the blade absorbing the magical bolt—

And then I draw that energy from Aphelion, seamlessly pulling it into an aura around me. To an uninformed observer, it’s as if I’ve used the blade itself as a conduit to absorb the magic myself.

_A stupid parlour trick. I really will find a way to make this up to you, Aphelion._

I receive a metallic pang of indifference in return. He does seem content with the way I am drawing in every bit of mana that I can, though, slowly but surely pulling all of the magic out of the air. 

_Duelling wards, like the one that Principal-Instructor Kemikeru put up just now, stop mana from going between them. In that case, if we put to practice Magical Field Theory...?_

I continue weaving around shots, absorbing the mana from the air as I go along. At the range we’re at, it’s child’s play to dodge, even when he begins launching faster spells. Eventually, he begins realizing that I have no intention of moving closer at all and begins moving himself, coming closer— 

But I, with my own sensory abilities, can see exactly what he’s walking into— 

_Mana isn’t instant. It’s fast, sure, but it’s slow enough to leave a short-lived ‘dead space’ where there isn’t that much mana in the air...and he’s walking into it!_

Abruptly, I turn, lunging at him with Reinforced speeds— 

And almost get my head blown off by a simple fireball, ducking just in time for it to sail over my head.

 _Right. Guess he can core-cast, huh? If only I could cast my own wards, this would be much easier. If_ everywhere _was a dead-space...but I can improvise!_

He might not be as harmless as I thought, but he’s fighting a Reinforced ninja in close combat! Taking just a moment to call a bit of energy to myself, I thrust out with Aphelion, intending to knock him away with the force of the swing—

What emerges is a blast of raw magic that sends him tumbling away a dozen meters, Lucian only just managing to keep his footing.

_Right. You can enhance, too. Gods, you’re strong._

**Naturally.**

Narrowing my eyes, I abandon my prior strategy as impractical and begin concocting a new one, racing forward to close the gap— 

And Lucian slips back, launching a pair of twisting white bolts that I dodge with a healthy margin and absorb with Aphelion when they curve in anyways. Gritting his teeth, the boy fires off a blast of Air at my feet, sending debris flying at my head—

_Please._

I counter by sweeping Aphelion out, another blast of what is essentially raw magic blasting out and blowing the dust right back into his face.

_Time to use the magic I’ve accumulated!_

Letting the power flow out from my body, I spin and swing Aphelion like a bat, a shockwave of power rippling off of it and cracking the ground underneath us. It catches him, hurling him back-first into the wards where he collapses. 

A moment later, he’s pelted by the dirt and rocks that my attack hurled into the air. 

_...Is that it?_

Suddenly, from the still-falling dust cloud, a fast-moving beam emerges. This is _Super Charge Beam!_

_It’s a long-range, powerful spell that’s designed to be easily modified. That being said, that kind of attack is notable as a shield-breaker and piercer because of how intense it can get, if you will enough magic into it._

_Perfect. Split it, Aphelion!_

Gathering my will, I thrust the blade forward, and meet the oncoming laser head-on, unflinching as the burning blast splits into two and carves furrows into the ground on either side of me. The heat is intense, but nothing compared to my Ice Aberration— 

_More importantly..._ **_take this!_ **

A blast of magic, and just a tiny bit of Etheria, pierces through Lucian’s Super Charge Beam, unmaking the spell as it tears through its center, and reaches the other end — that it, his wand, and his outstretched hand. Without stopping, it pulverizes his wand, mangles his hand, and carves a laceration down the rest of his arm before impacting the wards behind him and exploding with concussive force right next to his head. He’s hurled away, hitting the ground with a painful-sounding thump, clearly unconscious.

“That’s that, then.” Calmly, I sheathe Aphelion and walk back into the stairwell as the crowd stares in awe and the Principal-Instructor teleports down, magic gathering to her wand to begin healing. 

_“…And if he doesn’t heed the warning?”_

_“Then…I want you to hurt him so badly that he doesn’t ever think of hurting Leona ever again.”_

_Mission accomplished._

_…_

_Hey, Aphelion…I hate to ask this of you, but could you pass a message to Alexandria when she comes to claim you? I’m bound not to tell ‘anyone’ myself, but you, technically, are not ‘someone’…_

**She comes now to reclaim me. Be quick about it.**

_Leona can counter Ketami’s illusions by thinking about how his Clairvoyance really works._

“Good job, Aspen. You’re done here, now.” 

I’m unsurprised to hear Alexandria’s voice from behind me. 

“Thank you.” I reply, unhooking Aphelion from my hip and returning the sentient blade to her. She takes it, a strange look passing over her face. 

“…Heh. About time someone noticed.” 

“She’s going to feel quite silly.” I agree. 

“Well, finish your day and return after classes end as soon as possible. Everyone will be there by then.”

I nod. “Understood.”

She teleports away once more, leaving me to continue my ascent.

…

I step out of the stairwell, and immediately the hushed chatter falls to dead silence. Even Leona stares at me with surprise in her eyes. 

“Wha…what was that?” Robin asks directly, a mixture of shock and awe in his eyes. 

“That’s a family secret.” I say lightly. “I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you if I tried.”

_Which is true, even, given that I utilized a fragment of Etheria in that last particular attack. Simple, but effective. The properties of a basic energy release technique utilizing life energy and the ‘repel’ properties of Aphelion to create a potent magic-piercing bolt of energy. A solid B-ranked Battle Magic, by magus understanding._

“First Leona, then you…you guys are really something else, huh…?” Selena murmurs. Around us, people start talking once more in low voices. Apparently taking Lucian Ketami down with that kind of contemptible ease makes me a threat.

_Thankfully, the ramifications of that should not matter, since I am leaving now._

I smile slightly. “I simply take after my Master.” 

“It’s like the King and Royal Guardian!” She squeals. 

“The King and what?” I ask. Principal-Instructor Kemikeru is busily tending to Ketami’s wounds, doing some kind of complicated magic to piece together his hand. 

“You don’t know?!” She asks, then stops me before I can even confirm the obvious, “The King of Arcacia is served by his Royal Guardian. They’re both raised together at a young age, building the tightest bonds of camaraderie and friendship, seeing each other at their best and worst!” Selena giggles.

“So they’re like…siblings, almost, in closeness?” 

The pinkette nods eagerly. “Exactly! They’re inseparable! And so, so very strong…” 

_Something to watch out for. The parallel is interesting, though._

“I see.” 

“Good job, Aspen.” Leona says, smiling. “Thank you.” 

Her eyes convey more than her words, a genuine gratitude. It’s clear she doesn’t quite understand everything that happened, but knows enough to know that I have alleviated her problems with Ketami, at least temporarily.

_That’s fine. Temporary should be all we need._

_…_

With Leona’s permission, I sneak away from the trio at the end of classes, and make my way to the Hospital. It isn’t too hard to find the person I’m looking for.

“Why are you here?” Lucian Ketami asks shortly, facing away from me. He’s lying on a cot in one of the rooms, still apparently healing from the crippling damage I did to him. 

“Leona can be an annoying brat at times.” I say simply. “But she is still my sister. I would have killed you today without remorse, but she explicitly told me to let you live. I understand your bitterness regarding her…it can feel frustrating to watch someone constantly stay a step ahead of you.” I think about Sayaka, and how she spent months chasing my shadow before growing into her own power. “But that is no reason to drag them down. Especially not a girl as sweet as her. She’s made her mistakes, certainly, but she’s tried to make up for them…and please don’t ever accuse her of not working hard enough. That girl drives herself to the bone, sometimes literally. I’d know. I’ve helped her do it before. She’s gifted, certainly, but she also tries very, very hard. You don’t see much of it, but anyone with a brain should be able to tell. There are not many people her age who can cast B-ranked Battle Magic.” 

_And she’s not the only one. Don’t you forget it._

“What’s your point?” He mutters, but some of the anger has faded from his tone. 

“You ought to understand, now. Leave her alone. I’m not asking you to make friends with her, but stop harassing her. Focus on your own life and opportunities…and you’ll find that you’ll be better off for it.”

“I suppose this is the part where you threaten me if I don’t?”

I smirk. “Oh, no. This is the part where I tell you I’ve already bypassed the vow we made.” 

He stiffens. “You—“

“Leave her alone, Ketami. I won’t need to threaten you…because she’ll crush you herself. You felt her real, unrestrained power for yourself. She’s avoided seriously fighting you because the effort needed to overcome your illusions without maiming you would have been too much, and killing you would have weighed on her conscience. With what I’ve taught her, she no longer needs to do that. Our families need not meaninglessly fight on this matter.”

“…Fine. Now get out.” 

“A pleasure.” 

…

“I believe this will be farewell, Lady Selena, Lord Robin.” I bow deeply. “It was truly a pleasure having known you for the time I did.” 

“You really have to leave?” She pouts. “It was really fun with you guys…and with you here, Leona behaves! I haven’t had to sit a detention with her the entire time you’ve been here!”

_Something tells me you both willingly follow her into trouble. But that’s good. Leona’s chosen her friends well._

“Family business.” I deflect, pasting a regretful smile on my face. “I’ve certainly enjoyed being here.”

“I’m sure we’ll see you again someday.” Robin says thoughtfully. “Maybe in the break?”

_I’ll be long gone by then, unfortunately._

“Perhaps.” I say instead. “In the meantime, I’m sorry, but I shall have to leave Leona to you.” 

“Hey!” 

Selena jumps forward to hug me, an embrace I cautiously return. 

“I’ll miss you.” She whispers. “It really was fun.” 

I pat her head. “Take care of yourself.”

She pulls away, a little teary-eyed, but steps back all the same so that Robin can shake my hand. 

“Take care of her.” I murmur, glancing at my wayward charge. 

“I was about to say the same.” He nods. 

“One last time, then. Well met, Aspen of the Dawn family. I am called Robin, third son of the Qiratisa family.”

“Well met, Aspen of the Dawn family. I am called Selena, second daughter of the Tsuzera family.”

“Charmed.” I bow deeply. “It was truly a pleasure to have known you.” Both return the gesture. 

“Ah, one question, Robin, before I leave. Your name…it doesn’t really fit with the Arcacian alphabet, right? So is it a foreign name?”

He nods in confirmation. “Yes. You ought to know, given that your name is, too. But that isn’t indicative of a foreign background, since many first names are pulled from other places.”

_Cynthia. Robin. Aspen._

“Our foreign last name, on the other hand,” Leona interjects, “Implies our family is very young or has moved from somewhere else.” 

I nod. “Thanks. That’s all I wanted to ask.”

He shakes his head, stepping back. “Farewell.” 

“Goodbye!” Selena says, waving. 

“See you guys tomorrow.” Leona says cheerfully. 

_“Mazuateru!”_

…

“You’re not coming back to school anymore?” Leona asks, once we’ve regained our bearings in the Warp Room. 

“No.” I let the placid, gentle expression I’ve kept on my face for the majority of my lifetime as Aspen fade away. “It would seem the leadership necessary to progress is here. Back to business, now.” 

She frowns. “I…If there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know. I owe you.” 

A small smile flits across my face. “As you command, Milady.” 

She groans, but she can’t quite stop herself from laughing, either, as we exit the room and begin walking down the stairs.


	110. (4.3.9) Sunset, Closing (Cynthia Kemikeru's POV)

#  **4.3.9 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Sunset, Closing (Cynthia Kemikeru’s POV)**

_Where is my son? I was informed that he was seriously injured in a duel._

**Currently resting in the infirmary. I suspect that he will be out within the hour, given that I treated him myself.**

_I see. And the one who did this to him?_

**The first son of the Dawn Family.**

_Is this a joke? The first_ son _of the—_

**I thought so at first. Turns out she brought one of hers back after they found out he could do magic after all.**

_I see. Which floor is he on?_

**The third—**

I wince as an alarm blares in my mind — the teleportation wards have been breached for the fifth time today. A minute later, a sixth alarm goes off — him exiting.

**Lynn.**

_Yes, boss?_

**Please contact the usual warders tomorrow morning. We’ll be upgrading our teleportation wards.**

_We will? What will we tell the Finance department?_

**Out of concern for the missing mage-knights, we will be increasing our defenses and improving security.**

_If they refuse? I don’t think that’ll be good enough for them._

**Tell them I’ll have Alexandria visit to demonstrate any lapses in security.**

_She’s more likely to tear them down entirely if there’s holes in the wards, isn’t she?_

**Exactly.**

_Then I’ll do that, boss._

I rub my head, exhausted, but half a minute later—

**Hey, Cynthia?**

_Alexandria?_

**Thanks for the help today. I owe you.**

_No—_

The connection breaks.

_…problem. Damn it._

**Lynn.**

_Boss?_

**I’m heading home today. Keep running the ship, kay?**

_I always do._

“Heh. Cheeky bitch.” With a rueful sigh, I start mentally plotting the teleportation home. I’ll still have to handle calls, but at least I can do it in the presence of alcohol. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that brings the relatively relaxed pacing of Sunset to a close. Now it's time to put to use everything that Yuki's learned about magic.


	111. (4.4.1) Dream Cycle, Part 1

#  **4.4.1 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Dream Cycle, Part One**

Alexandria telepathically directs us to a room I’ve never seen before. 

_Actually, I can’t remember it having ever been there. Magic?_

Standing at the door is someone I recognize. 

“Well met, Lord Black.” I bow. 

“Charmed. Yuki, isn’t it?” His calculating gaze makes it clear that he very well knows my name. “And Leona, too? If you’d wait a moment, I need to perform our standard checks.”

“Allow me.” Alexandria says, stepping outside. Drawing her wand, she quickly flicks it in our direction twice. 

“Clear. Come inside, please.”

“What was that?” 

“A check for compulsions and illusions.” She answers easily. “It’s something that our wards scan for anyways, but it never hurts to be certain, especially since what we’ll be talking about will be top secret.” 

“Yuki, Leona!” Mari greets cheerfully as we sit down next to her. We’re all gathered around a large, round wooden table that has a large map similar to what Lord Black and Alexandria had talked over the other day. 

“Mari.” I smile slightly, aware that I’m being watched. Within the room are a half-dozen people besides those I already know, ranging in both age and gender. They all seem to be magi, based on the power I can feel off of them. Alexandria, Leona, Lord Black, and Mari are all familiar presences, but there are also three women — an older, serious-looking woman with greyed hair tied tightly in a bun, an even older woman with piercingly violet eyes, and a much younger redhead with a pleasant smile on her face. There are two other men as well, both elderly and bald. 

“Seal the doors.” One of the men commands. Alexandria does so, flicking her hand out towards the doors. They close shut, then glow bright red for a moment, the gap between door and wall fusing.

“Now…let the meeting commence. First, our agenda for the day…obviously, we must begin with our two visitors.” The first speaker, and the apparent mediator, is the serious-looking woman. 

“Indeed.” Lord Black says. “It is as we said in our messages, Amelia. These two ninja managed to infiltrate the border completely undetected and made contact with one of our civilian gatekeepers. From there, Leona intercepted them and brought them into the base.” 

“Forgive me, but this was Saturday, correct?” 

“It was.” 

“…Isn’t Leona typically within the manor over the weekends?” Amelia glances curiously at the girl in question.

She flushes. “I had a Clairvoyance-based vision… two of them, actually. It took some…creative interpretation, but I’m convinced that Yuki and Mari fit the bill. When I overheard Roberts receiving the news of some strange visitors…I knew I had to do it myself.”

“So you’ve finally cracked the shell of your powers, hm?” One of the bald men asks. “Congratulations.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Anyways, Yuki, could you please explain the circumstances that brought you here?” Alexandria asks.

I do so, keeping out certain details — namely, the specifics of my Ice aberration, and my usages of Life energy. 

“Thanks. Then—“ The Spellweaver briefly sums up the following events to them — her first meeting with me, the resulting weekend of magical exploration and training, then the events of the Academy. 

“Wasn’t it a bit risky to introduce Yuki into the Sunset Academy?” The redhead woman asks. Now that I’m focusing on her, I can feel a sense of some indecipherable power within her. 

“I felt it reasonable to believe in his infiltration skills given that he’s made it this far.” Alexandria retorts dryly. 

I incline my head in agreement.

“What kind of ninja are you precisely, Yuki of Alune?” Lord Black asks. “Alexandria has been rather closed-off about your capabilities. It’s important that we know what you’re able to do, though, if we’re to plan around you.” He glances at Mari. “Both of you.”

“I suppose that I could be considered an infiltration specialist, but I can fill just about any role.” I answer honestly. “I specialize in Ice and Wind with a secondary Water focus, and am competent in a variety of weapons including the sword and bow. At my core I’m primarily a close-combat fighter, but can be a lethal assassin, too. I’m also an excellent defender.”

“Close-ranged specialist.” Mari volunteers. “With qi — er, chakra — I’m both devastatingly fast and strong. I use the Storm element, which is basically a super-powered version of Lightning. Storm also has mild inherent anti-magical properties.”

“Fascinating.” Lord Black says thoughtfully. “And how strong are you two, respectively? If you could, say...compare yourselves to Leona and Alexandria?”

“Alexandria’s far stronger than the two of us.” I immediately interject, and Mari nods. “As for Leona...? I suppose it depends. We’re typically about evenly matched, but if I acted to kill, I believe I would be able to take her down relatively quickly.” 

“Leona’s definitely a tricky fighter and a strong mage.” Mari agrees, “But the same here.” 

The blonde magus looks affronted, pouting. 

“So confident?” Alexandria murmurs.

“I don’t deny that your daughter is a skilled combatant and an excellent magus…and perhaps under normal conditions a stronger fighter than I, even.” I admit. “But neither of us are normal.”

“That’s right, your Ice aberration…and you, your Storm aberration.” The redhead murmurs. 

“Correct.” 

“Would you be willing to submit to some testing later—“ 

“Aria!” Amelia scolds. 

“Sorry, sorry!” She smiles, abashed. “I’m just so very curious.” 

“Maybe.” I say noncommittally. 

“Anyways, Yuki successfully infiltrated the Academy under the guise of a servant to Leona for four days. He dueled the Ketami heir and completely trounced him utilizing my sword.”

“My daughter saw that.” Aria murmurs, grinning. “It seems she’s quite taken with him.” 

I blink. “Your last name…Tsuzera?”

_No, I’m positive. I hadn’t seen the resemblance at first, but now…now that I’m looking for it, I can believe that she’s her mother._

“Well met, Yuki of Alune.” She smiles sunnily. “I am called Aria, First Lady of the Tsuzera family. It is a pleasure to meet you.” 

“Charmed.” I tilt my head. “Your daughter is quite the character.” 

“Perhaps you would like to get to know her more intimately at a later date?” She hints. “I’m certain we could come to an agree—“ 

“Aria…” Alexandria palms her face. The redhead mimes zipping her lips closed.

“Yuki is compatible with Spellweaver?” One of the men asks. “That is truly a shock. Could you demonstrate for us?” 

“Yuki?” Alexandria asks, probing. 

“I am unsure if Aphelion would consent to being shown off like that.” I eventually say. “I would also feel uncomfortable showing him off myself.”

“Aphelion?” She asks.

“It is the name he prefers.” I explain.

“I see.” She says, eyes widening slightly in surprise. Her hand drops to the hilt of her blade, obviously beginning a conversation with the sword.

“Meanwhile…” Mari interjects hesitantly, “I’ve been training in infiltration myself. There’s a lot of work I have to do since I’m not exactly a specialist, but I’m not too bad. I really am more of a brute-force fighter, though.”

Lord Black nods. “We’ll be relying on your abilities soon. There is a communication fort not too far out from Ember, and we plan on assaulting it and taking it over.”

I blink, surprised. “That’s quite bold. Would that not bring retribution down on nearby villages? Please forgive me, I must admit to not being familiar with the actions you have already taken.” 

“Alexandria, do you mind briefing him on that later?” 

“Of course. I should have already done so. My apologies, Yuki.” 

I nod. “It’s not a problem. But…?”

“Yes, we can move that boldly.” Lord Black says. “We have control over the magical enforcement here, after all. Those beyond the wall do know we exist and our general location, but the forces they must commit to find and take us out are more than they can commit. And lesser forces are simply consumed…or turned, when possible.”

“Taking the communication fort would not provoke that additional reaction?” 

“It would by itself, but we’re timing that attack with a hundred similar assaults on key landmarks and targets. We’ve yet to move on that scale, so they will not be able to react well.”

“I see.” I muse. “Key landmarks? I’ve heard of the Great Wall — it separates the Lowlands, which we are in and which consists of mostly mundanes, from the Highlands, right? What if we pierced that?” 

“The only person who could do that here would be Alexandria.” Amelia says. “And there’s only a handful of people who could do it at all. If they didn’t have an iron-clad alibi, they would be immediately suspected, and it would be a lot of trouble for them. 

“What if Mari and I took care of it?” I ask. “If you can teleport us there...I want to scout it first, but I’m pretty sure I can launch a strong enough attack.”

“You’re that positive?” 

“I am.”

The magi glance at each other. “It’s worth a shot, at least.”

“I can create a mock target.” Lady Tsuzera volunteers. “It obviously won’t be the real thing, but if he can break it, it raises the odds.” 

“That’s settled for now, then. We’ll finalize the details over the next few days then move to act. Yuki, Mari, you two are comfortable with joining the assault as a specialized strike team, I assume?”

“Naturally.” I agree, Mari nodding firmly. “Keep us informed. Will we be doing a mock run?”

“Yes.” The oldest woman says. “I am very talented in the mind magics. When we gather our strike force, we will run mental simulations.”

“I see. Thank you for the explanation.”

“Next on the agenda...Arcacian’s invasion of Lunaria.”

“Have you all been able to discover anything regarding it?” I ask. “It came as a complete surprise to me, although there were warning signs in hindsight. I doubt our leadership shall be caught off guard, at least.” 

“Definitely not.” Mari confirms. 

I’m reminded once again that Mari is, for all intents and purposes, an elite ninja, with all the privileges and secret information that confers. 

Alexandria nods. “I do have a little information from my various contacts, as well as my position. The first half of the army is mostly civilians accompanying mages. They’re to take all the soft targets, especially civilian towns, and…kill everyone they come into contact with.” 

I wince.

“Specifically?” The final man asks. “Now…that’s truly fascinating.”

“Explain?” 

“Arcacia logistically is capable of taking prisoners.” Lord Black muses. “We have the space and the utilities and supplies necessary to do so. Failing that, there’s no need to go out of their way to kill civilians. But that they’re being ordered to effectively commit genocide? That _is_ strange.”

“Precisely. It’s as if…” The man frowns, running a hand through short grey hair. “It’s as if this entire first part of the invasion is…no, that can’t be.”

“What are you thinking?” Amelia asks. 

“The genocide…it’s a bit of a far-out thought, I must admit, but what if it is preparation for a blood-based ritual?” 

“…The synergetic attacks.” Leona swears under her breath. “It’s…when the method of murder is within a contained spell-circle…every mage casting would have to undergo ritual preparation, but you _could_ theoretically trap the souls of those within and…” 

“You’re telling me Arcacia is _stealing people’s souls_ for some kind of fucked-up ritual?” Mari interjects, sounding disgusted. 

“Maybe.” The man says. “Pure speculation at this point, though.” 

“But to think that something like that…that something like that is even possible…” Lady Tsuzera looks upset for a moment — then, her eyes sharpen. “Gary, give me possibilities. What could they do with that?”

“Death magic. Blood magic.” The mage named Gary shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I’m not as well-read on that particular branch as I wish I were. It’s too obscure. But…nothing good. The deaths aren’t necessarily quick, depending on the method. The fear, the sense of impending death — all of that could taint the energy gathered. Or perhaps that is exactly what they want…twisted souls, a snapshot of the angry, turbulent emotions felt at the moment of impending death…” 

“How could they use that?” I close my eyes. “I need examples. What exactly can they do with that energy? Let’s assume that negative energy, this death magic of yours, is exactly what they want. How can they use that? Some kind of weapon? Magic spell? What can they achieve with it that they can’t use some kind of substitute for?” 

“Decay.” Alexandria says softly. “Plague. The creation of a potent virus that eats away at magic and chakra…that cripples the infected and saps them of the will to live…” 

There’s a moment of silence as everyone processes that. Leona is pale white. 

“…Methods of transmission?” I break the silence, heart racing in my chest. 

“Variable. You can create liquid magic through very complicated alchemy. In theory, they could even release it as an airborne substance. It would weaken the effect overall, but with a base that dangerously corrosive…” 

“It would still be overwhelmingly fatal to the majority of the infected.” I mutter. “And…you said it would _eat away at magic and chakra?_ Like a corrosive…how would that work?”

“…The Great Plague.” Leona whispers, horror in her eyes. “That’s what that was, wasn’t it? Not an unknown viral epidemic. It was…”

“You know your history, girl.” Amelia says. “Yes. That plague was caused directly by an accident handling such a specimen. The infected numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Fatality rate…”

“Eighty percent.” My peer murmurs. 

_I get the impression that we’ve just learned one of the darker secrets of magic._

“Three days to death, from symptom onset, and that’s if you survived the primary symptom.” The elder lady explains for my benefit. “Suicidal madness. It caused the infected to undergo wild mood swings and dangerous depressions. Most of the infected killed themselves.” 

“And Arcacia wants to infect my country with something like that?” Mari asks. “That’s sick!”

“Not all of Arcacia.” Lady Tsuzera refutes pointedly. “Many of us are against those measures and actively stand against them.”

“Sorry.” Mari says, flushing. “I’m not sure how to differentiate between the two, though.”

“They are the _Highborn_.” Lord Black says. “It is fitting given their own slurs, we believe.”

I nod. “It is. Moving on...how do we stop them? The Highborn?”

“…We can’t.” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“We can’t.” Gary repeats himself. “They’ve likely already gathered the souls they need. They’ve had, what? A full week, at least. Longer, maybe. All that time dedicated to genocide. The only limiting factor would be travel time. The actual spellwork to rip the lives of the villagers away, and to contain their souls, takes only a few hours. And there’s many civilian towns within even three days of moderately paced travel. Their body count likely lies in the hundreds of thousands already, if they fanned out over the borders…brutally efficient work.” 

“And they aim to kill many more with their plague…” Alexandria concludes. “Not to mention the actual war itself.” She glances at Lord Black. “It seems safe to say that this is the secret weapon that Arcacia has planned to get around the eventual stonewall. The power of even a Spellweaver is useless against disease.”

“Of course, this assumes that Arcacia goes through with all of this. For all we know, they’re planning something else entirely.” Amelia points out reasonably. 

“But we can’t think of anything else right now, and there is a precedent.” The Spellweaver counters. “An important precedent. It goes without saying that we should look to discreetly investigate, but we should consider something like this a strong possibility. It’s brutal, effective, fits with our understanding of the Highborn’s actions and modus operandi…unless we can identify a different option, we should plan around this. Right now, there’s nothing more we can do.” 

No one can disagree with that. 

…

“We’ll reconvene the day after tomorrow.” Alexandria informs me after the group of magi disperse. “The strike team for the communication fort will arrive before that time. You should familiarize yourself with them, as they’ll be your comrades for the assault as well as other potential future attacks. I’ve hand-picked them myself, so they’re all competent and trustworthy.” 

“And if the mental simulations do not go well?” I ask seriously. 

“We’ll change our plans based on that…hopefully that isn’t the case, though. I have high hopes for your work.”

“Do you have any information files on them? It would be useful to read up on them.” 

“Of course. I’ll get them to you by tomorrow morning.” 

I nod. “In the meantime, what should I do?” 

“Train.” She says crisply. “Leona will be returning to the Academy tomorrow for classes, and she also has mage-knight training on Saturday. I don’t believe Mari has any pressing obligations, so you will probably have some time to yourselves…I suggest ensuring that you two are ready to fight together. You two, rather than the strike team, will most likely be the key assets in this operation. Arcacian mages are trained mostly to fight other mages, not ninja.” 

“I see.” I muse. “Yes, that sounds like a plan.”

“One thing before I let you go, Yuki. Aphelion?”

I blink. “Yes. He has apparently grown attached to our language, although I’m unsure as to what precisely about that name intrigues him so.”

“…I see.” She murmurs thoughtfully. “That’s all, then.” Without further comment, she briskly strides away.

_How strange._

“Yuki!” Leona and Mari call out to me from down the hallway, quickly walking to me. 

“What is it?” I ask as they grow closer. 

“Let’s train together.” 

“…You mean, all three of us?”

“Well, more like the two of you.” Mari scratches her head. “I just want to see you do magic.” 

“…Right. Sure.”

We end up in the training arena.

“There’s no point in training your basic magic.” Leona starts. “You have the potential for it, I think, but it’s going to take time we don’t have. So let’s focus instead on the magic that you obviously do have a penchant for. Specifically, your Ice Magic.” 

I nod. “It’s pretty intuitive, actually.” 

“Yes, but do you know what your limits are?” She asks. “Have you integrated it into your combat style?”

I have to admit that I haven’t.

“See?” She crosses her arms. 

“Fair.” I relent. “And the best way to do that is doing.”

“Yes! So I want you to duel Mari!” 

“…Huh?” We ask simultaneously. 

“Mari needs more practice fighting against magic. You need more practice using yours. And both of you are familiar with each other’s fighting styles, so you aren’t likely to hurt each other on accident.”

_Well…sort of. I won’t seriously hurt Mari, but there’s a decent chance she could badly injure me. Thankfully, I have quite the healing factor. It should be fine._

“I’m up for it if you are, captain.” The Storm Mistress says cheerily. 

“…Why not?” I say, slipping into a combat stance. “I think it’ll be fun. Try to take it easy at first, okay?” 

“Sure.” She closes her eyes, and when they reopen, one iris is bright blue. 

“Hey! Take it easy, I said!” I yelp, the Ice Staff I’d created with Alexandria materializing in my hands. 

“I _am_ taking it easy.” She grins dangerously. 

_You should name your weapons._

Right, Alexandria had said something about that. I glance at the staff in my hands. Hm…

Inspiration strikes me abruptly. 

_Sol. The staff that shines brightly with magic._

And the sword?

_Luna. The blade that cuts from the shadows._

It seems fitting enough. 

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

“Then…begin!” 

“ _Frozen Garden_.” I slam the butt of the staff on the ground, Ice rapidly blooming into existence along the ground. Mari laughs delightedly, her own Storm sparking out from her as she raises a foot high into the air.

“ _Charge Kick_!”

_Ah, hell._

I counter with a freezing beam that stops her shockwave cold before leveling the attack at her. She zips out of the way, reappearing in my face a moment later. I raise Sol, blocking her punch with the shaft before slashing at her, the staff becoming razor sharp. 

Unwilling to try blocking, she darts away and draws her blade before coming in again, only to find that I’ve traded Sol for Luna, meeting her strike with my own. She tries to force the blade down, but my reinforcement matches her base strength with ease, and then some. Frowning, she activates her Storm Cloak, and it’s only then that my grip begins to give under her force.

I spit Ice at her face. She immediately backs off to dodge. 

“That’s so gross!” 

Her backing off, though, gives me the time for a bigger spell as I quickly swap to Sol, the magic already rising at my command.

_“Snowstorm!”_

Instead of from my mouth, I cast the spell directly from the focusing gem on my staff. This time, it covers a far wider area, blanketing a massive cone in front of me in frost. Mari’s simply too fast to be hit, though, even by such a wide-ranged spell, and she comes back in for another pass. Luna comes back out to play, nearly taking her head off as she quickly parries.

“Time to take it up a notch, captain!” She shouts, her power rising. “Overclock 120!”

Faster than I can blink, her foot comes out and catches me in the chest with punishing force, sending me flying backwards. I slide across my Ice, staff scraping along the ground as my regeneration goes to work.

_“First Bloom!”_

Ice explodes out of the layer of frost I’ve already planted on the ground, forming large, sharp crystals and pillars. 

Mari glances around, surprised, then activates her Storm Cloak. I raise my staff high and slam it down.

_“Blizzard!”_

The Ice structures explode into thousands of tiny, sharp projectiles moving at deadly speeds. Mari _moves_ so fast it’s impossible for me to keep track of her, turning into a bright blue blur. 

A few seconds later, the storm dissipates, leaving her standing in a veritable lake of Ice. 

“…Impossible…” I say under my breath. With the exception of a few surface cuts and rather torn-up clothes, Mari is essentially uninjured. 

She grins viciously, _both_ eyes glowing electric blue. “Now that, Yuki? That was some fascinating magic. Show me more!”

“Any more and we might bring the place down.” I say dryly. 

_“Show me more!”_ She disappears in a blue blur.

“Stand down, Mari!” I command, dissipating Sol. 

“Erk—“ She comes to a halt in front of me, fist raised, but chakra gone. “I…Yuki, I’m so sorry—“ She yelps as her legs suddenly give out on her. Having expected it, I catch her, sinking to my knees to hold her up.

“No harm was done. Don’t worry about it.”

_It’s not the first time Mari’s lost control in a duel. This is why I’m careful about escalating things…but I wouldn’t have thought she would have lost it so quickly. It must have been tapping into that technique._

“Is everything okay?” Leona comes running up to us, wand clutched in her hand.

“We’re fine now.” I confirm. “This happens sometimes.” I turn my attention back to my teammate. “Mari, what was that technique you used? That speed technique. I haven’t heard of anything like that before.”

She smiles bashfully, although she’s still clearly suffering from pain spasms. “I’ve never needed to use it in combat until now. I call it _Flash Step._ It’s…” She glances at Leona. “A combination of my supersensory abilities and the maximum output of Storm Chakra that I can safely handle, letting me move at extremely high velocities while maintaining perfect comprehension of the surrounding air.”

“Call it what you like.” Leona says, pale, “The fact that you managed to dodge that spell…?”

_Leona would not have been able to stop that spell. Ice resists natural magic enough for any kind of shield she could have put up to be battered down by the sheer amount of projectiles. With more time she might be able to come up with a counter, but the four seconds between First Bloom and Blizzard would not have sufficed._

“It’s one of my secret weapons.” She says sheepishly. 

_But an incredibly useful one. I couldn’t track her at all. All I knew was that she was moving, but…if she attacked at that kind of speed, I don’t think I would be able to stop her._

“That Overclock technique you called.” I mutter. “That was half of that, wasn’t it?”

She nods. “I push it to whatever I need to. There’s a bit of a kickback, but when I’m that deep, I don’t feel it until...” She gestures at herself.

“Until you slip out of...madness?” Leona struggles to express her words. Mari flushes, avoiding her gaze.

“More like battle-lust.” I correct clinically. “The more she calls on her Storm, the worse it gets. It usually isn’t a problem normally on missions because we’re supposed to be eradicating the enemy anyways, but in spars it can become a problem.”

“I’m sorry!” Leona rushes out. “If I had known, I would have never—“

“We aren’t made out of glass.” I say dryly. “And no one was actually hurt.” As I speak, my hands rest on Mari’s thighs, sending healing chakra into her muscles. “And even if I was, I’m an excellent healer, as Mari very well knows from the last time, when she sent me through four walls.”

Both of them cringe, one in sympathy and one in remembrance.

“You should be good now.” I motion to Mari. Leona stares at her contemplatively. 

“At any rate, Mari, you should rest, shouldn’t you? I’ll be lecturing this guy, here.” 

“I’ll watch.” Mari confirms. 

“Good.” The blonde magus smiles, cheer apparently restored. I’m glad to see it — she’s seemed off ever since the meeting. “Now, Yuki, let’s talk a little about that magic. You were running on autopilot, weren’t you?”

I blink. “Yes...”

“That’s no good.” She points at him. “You’re not really properly thinking when you do that. Why’d you waste time with _Snowstorm_? You know she’s fast enough to dodge it. You got trapped in the rhythm of your instincts and acted without thinking. I’ve noticed that, actually, in plenty of the fights you’ve been in. Especially the high-level ones, against me and against Mari. You follow your instincts entirely once you get pushed far enough, and stop strategizing. You aren’t used to being pushed, are you?” 

I think back to all the times I’ve really needed to dig deep within myself to win. 

“I’ve only been truly pushed twice.” I confirm. “Versus you in that duel, Leona — it wasn’t a fight to the death, but I put my all into winning given the conditions — and...”

“Versus Setsuna?” Mari asks quietly.

“...Yes.”

Leona’s eyes soften slightly, then harden in determination.

“I’ll call the mind healer. We’ll change that.” 


	112. (4.4.2) Dream Cycle, Part 2

#  **4.4.2 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Dream Cycle, Part Two**

As it turns out, the mind specialist hasn’t quite gotten around to departing, and is willing to hear out Leona’s request.

“I see. You would like to give him life or death experience by fighting him within a simulation.”

“It’s...it’s also for me. If I...should I need to take a life, it may be best if it isn’t my first time.” Leona admits, glancing away. 

“I see. I do not have much time left here before I must go, but I shall trap you two in a loop. I’ll spectate the first cycle, but you two will be on your own after.” 

“…Could you please explain?” I ask politely. “I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with the words you’re using.” 

The woman nods briskly. “The simulation loop I will run you through resets upon the virtual death of one of the participants. It’s used to simulate fights to the death. You will experience time at a dramatically slower rate than you would in the real world. It will only break if your real body is seriously disrupted, or when the magic wears out. I recommend having a spotter.”

“Mari, could you—“

“Of course.”

“Thanks.”

“There is no risk to our real bodies?” I ask. 

“Besides the potential of lasting emotional trauma or traumatic memories?” She asks pointedly. “But that can be erased, if must be. No permanent damage, but it is false to say there are no consequences at all. Taking a life is a very serious thing.” 

“I understand.” Leona murmurs. Silently, I incline my head, showing my own consent. 

“Alright. If you sustain any trauma from this…please note that I won’t be here for two days. Now, sit down in those chairs…and close your eyes. This will not be pleasant.”

…

I stumble, grimacing as I struggle to maintain my balance. Glancing around, I’m surprised to find myself in a reasonable facsimile of Ember, the village Mari and I first entered. 

“Fitting, isn’t it?” Leona asks lightly, standing a few meters away. “Had we met under different circumstances, we might have been enemies instead of allies.” 

“Are you ready for this?” I ask seriously. “You should not take the potential consequences seriously. The first kill is hard.”

“I accept that. Just as I accept these potential consequences.” Her stance shifts as she draws her mage-blade. “But Yuki…perhaps you should be worrying about yourself more than me.”

Her eyes close, then open, burning with a bright determination that mimics the time I’d first fought her. Magic begins to swirl around her, bright red patterns glowing faintly on her skin before dimming, looking something like lines of blazing fire. 

“Well met, Yuki of Alune. I am called Leona the Firelight Magus, first daughter and Heiress of the Dawn Family, mage-knight in training!” She slashes her sword across her, fire blazing to life around the blade. “Are you ready?”

I sink into the Veil. 

“…Let’s go.” 

Fire spirals around her in a very familiar way, and I immediately begin gaining distance, calling my magic to me. 

_“Spiral Dragon Blade!_ ”

She leaps upwards, suspended in the air for a brief moment, and her eyes lock on the giant gleaming Ice arrow I’ve launched at her apex point. Fifty meters away, the bow in my hands fades away, Sol taking its place. 

Her blade lashes out, slashing into it, and a massive explosion of mixed Fire and Ice rings out in the open air, Leona falling out of the sky to land on her feet. She looks a little singed, but otherwise completely uninjured despite the spell failure feedback. 

“ _Frozen Garden!_ ” 

The butt of the staff slams into the ground, Ice spreading through the earth in all directions. Leona snarls, summoning her own staff and slamming it across the ground. Fire roars across its surface, a six-pointed star bursting out from her and forcing me to dodge. 

_It hasn’t disrupted the Ice nearly as much as she thinks, though!_

“ _First Bloom!”_

She’s forced to dodge as a massive crystal structure erupts from underneath her feet, her eyes wide as she slips on the Ice that she’d thought she’d melted— 

A spike of Ice nearly stabs through her feet as she leaps into the air, using some kind of Wind magic to keep herself afloat. Narrowing my eyes— 

_“Snowstorm!”_

_“Karaniluzusa!”_

The swirling pillar of frost is nullified by a glimmering green shield. Narrowing my eyes, I begin thinking of ways to reach her...

Less than three minutes, she slips up, and Luna cuts into her heart. 

…

I stumble, grimacing. 

_Huh?_

Everything is back to normal — the absolutely devastated landscape has been reformed, buildings standing tall once more, and Leona—

“Damn.” She cringes, rubbing at her chest. “I guess you were right — you are a bit stronger than me, when it comes down to it.”

I smile thinly. “I have quite a bit more power than that. But since I’m not sure whether or not it would have real-world repercussions, I’m going to have to pass on using them.” 

_By now, I have a fairly decent understanding of magic and of Leona’s fighting style...and the natural inclination to kill. The same couldn’t have been said for Leona until this loop. That, plus my natural stamina advantage, gave me this victory._

“Round two?” She asks. 

“Yes.”

…

It takes four rounds before I make a mistake, and Leona manages to slap me with a spell that quite literally severs me in two. I sense that I’m capable of healing the wound, but choose not to. 

_Useful to know, I guess._

…

I stumble, grimacing.

_Leona!_

She collapses to the ground and is violently, messily sick. I cautiously make my way over to her as she dry-heaves, pulling her away from the mess. 

“That was…horrible.” She squeezes her eyes shut, leaning into me as I gently embrace her. 

“The first time always is.” I say softly. “Are you okay?” 

She whimpers. “No. I’m definitely not okay. That…that was horrible, Yuki. How can…how can you bear it?” 

I shake my head. “Experience. And my aberration. It’s possible that you’ll find more solace from Mari. My heart has grown numb to it.” 

She stares at me. “Your aberration…it really does change you, doesn’t it? The same way Mari’s does…?”

“Yes.” I answer simply. “But comparing us is wrong. She rejects her nature. I embrace it.” 

“…And that’s why her aberration hurts her, and yours doesn’t…” She whispers. 

I shrug. “Perhaps. Or perhaps her element is simply by nature more volatile. Ice is dangerous in a very different way. I couldn’t say for certain. Perhaps she knows…or she could know, if she wished?” I shake my head. “That’s something personal to her.”

“I understand.” 

I’m not too sure if she does — being an Aberrant is a truly unique experience, and Mari and I have had it particularly rough — but it’s not worth pressing. 

“Are you ready to continue?” I ask, releasing her and leaning back to sit on the renewed stones. 

Indecision flickers across her face for a moment, then she shakes her head. “N-No. Please, can we talk a little more?”

“Huh? Sure. What about?”

“I…since we have the time, before we fight, could you tell me more about your comrades? They’re the people you fight for, aren’t they?”

“Are you sure you want to humanize me further? It’s easier to kill someone when you don’t think of them as a person, I’ve heard.” 

“I...can’t do that. Not to...I can’t.” 

“Alright.” I say softly. “Then…well, I guess I’d have to talk about Setsuna, first. I’ve known her…well, not the longest, but…”

_How well do I really know her? Isn’t that a thought I’ve had before?_

“That’s a complicated expression.” She laughs a little, then grins. “Are you lovers?” 

I shake my head. “No...not quite. Though Sayaka was interested...” 

“Both girls?” Leona tilts her head. “And Mari’s on your team too, right?”

“Yeah. We have our squad of four.” I smile slightly. “Our little family.” 

“You love them.” It isn’t a question.

“I do.” I reply without hesitation. “They’re…they’re _everything_ to me.” 

“Do you miss them? Setsuna and Sayaka?” 

“Of course.” My smile turns sad. “Every morning I wake up, and Setsuna isn’t next to me, or in the kitchen, demanding to be fed.” 

“W-Wait, n-next to you?!”

“Sayaka isn’t waiting outside, greeting me with some dry, sarcastic remark.” 

“Wait, didn’t she want to be your lover?!” 

“I miss that. I don’t think about it much — I _can’t_. I refuse to let myself. Before Mari and I even came to Arcacia, I pushed it all behind the Ice.” I look up towards the sky, watching the artificial sun dip lower and lower. 

“It does sound nice.” Leona agrees. 

I glance at her. “I’m sure you’ll fit right in.”

“H-Huh?” 

“Into our family. You won’t be taking missions, but…you’ll still be a part of us. I mean, where else would you go? You don’t really know anyone in Alune, right? We’ll take care of you.” 

“Really?” 

“Of course!” I pause. “Well. If you want to. If you don’t, I’m sure we can—“ 

She hugs me. 

“I’d…I’d love that. Please.” 

“Then…” Tentatively, I place my hand on her back. “Then we’d be happy to welcome you when the time comes, Leona.” 

Her grip tightens around me. “Thank you, Yuki.” 

We stay like that for a long while. 

…

“You know…even though you were pretending that you hated me, I’ll still miss it.” 

We’re sitting side-by-side, watching the sun slip past the horizon. 

“Huh?” I ask. “Are you…talking about the Academy?” 

She nods. “It was…it was like I had a real brother, just for a little bit.” Leona smiles a little sadly. “I’ve always been an only child…but I’ve wondered what it would be like to have a sibling, you know?” 

I glance away. “I’ll have to admit to being unfamiliar with the concept. Family is…a new concept to me, still. And it also doesn’t help that I’ve had some sort of romantic or sexual relations with all of my ‘family’ so far, unrequited or not.” 

Leona giggles. “You’ll be safe from me, then.” 

I glance at her. “You’re attracted to girls, aren’t you?”

She stares blankly at me. 

“H-How…?”

“It took me a while to realize.” I admit. “It was the way you acted with Selena, and the way you stare at Mari.”

“Wait, I don’t stare!”

I snort. 

“She hasn’t noticed, has she?!”

I shrug. “Eh. Probably not.” 

Her face grows serious. “Well…yes. I’m not…not really into guys.” 

A flicker of a smile crosses my lips. “Want help hooking up with Mari when we get back home?”

“Er. Well. I don’t know.” She blushes brightly. 

“It’ll be hard, you know?” I ask. “I don’t think she’s the kind of person who would mind a quick fling, but if you’re looking to court her, you’ll have to understand now that it will be challenging.”

“You mean…about her schedule and the fact that she might not come back home?”

I shake my head. “That’s just the tip of it. Mari is…special. Different from others.” 

“Her aberration?” 

“Exactly.” I place a hand over my heart. “They change you. All elements do, but especially the aberrant elements. They are far more primal than the natural elements…and their effects and powers, equally amplified.” 

“That might be true.” Leona agrees. “But it isn’t something I think I’d run away from, either. At least…I’d want to know more.” 

“...You should probably know that Mari and I are likely to be having sex at some point.”

She palms her face. “I’m starting to wonder if the problem about having too much sex within your so-called family doesn’t stem from you.”

“It’s related to her aberration.” I say seriously, and she sobers up immediately.

“Which part?”

“Her Storm aberration is rather wild. It takes serious effort for her to keep it under control. She’s been working on it, but whenever her control slips, she electrocutes whoever she touches. Now, when would her guard be the lowest?”

“Ah.” She frowns. “It’s physical contact too, so it would be challenging to shield.”

“It would probably kill you.”

“That bad?” She murmurs.

“Yes. I’m able to deflect it...but my technique can only work for me.”

“Because of your aberration?”

“Yes.”

_That’s a lie, but I don’t need to tell her about Etheria. In a way, it is sort of true, though — my aberration led me to meet Hikaru and to learn to manipulate it, after all._

“So that just means I have to develop a magical shielding or some kind of spell to stop that.” She nods firmly.

“How about you get to know her more before worrying about the potential sex?” I ask dryly.

“Of course I will, stupid.” She glares. “But making sure there aren’t any insurmountable problems before things can even begin strikes me as a good idea.” 

“Fair.” I acknowledge. “You’re a good girl, Leona. Should things go that far, you have my blessing.”

She smiles shyly. “Thank you.”

Something warm burns within my chest. Not romantic — that much I know, but...something warm, nonetheless, something that brings a smile to my face. 

“Of course.”

Her face glows in pleasure as she beams happily at me.

...

“...You know we’re supposed to be fighting to the death right now?”

“I don’t feel like killing you again. Tell me more about your family?”

I huff in amusement. “Alright.”

I’m halfway through the story of the Fourth Star Examination when the loop abruptly shatters, and we find ourselves dumped into the real world.

“Woah!” Mari catches the two of us as we pitch out of our seats, disoriented. “Everything okay?”

“Huh? Yeah.” I say, standing up. Now that I’m looking for it, I can see the way that Leona lingers a little in Mari’s hold before getting to her feet — just a little bit, but it’s enough.

“We’re fine.” Leona says happily. Thankfully, the angst from her first kill has vanished, although I’m sure it’ll reappear if she’s ever put into the position.

The Storm Mistress blinks. “You two don’t...huh. I kinda expected you both to be a little less happy. Did you guys actually...?”

“Only five times, total.” I admit. “We spent the rest of the time talking.” Catching Mari’s eye, I glance at Leona, then subtly shake my head. 

“Talking about what?” She asks curiously. 

_Well...if I’m bringing her into our ‘family’..._

“Mari, I’d like you to meet my adopted little sister, Leona Dawn.”

“Huh?! I’m the big sister! And wait — I’m adopting _you!_ ” 

“…So does that mean you won’t be boinking her, captain?” Mari asks slyly. 

“Absolutely not!” We shout. 

“I’m certainly glad to hear that.” A dry voice says from behind us.

“Erk…Mother.” 

“Alexandria.” I turn. “Good evening.” 

She sighs. “Young lady, you should retire for the night. You have classes tomorrow. Mari, could you escort her?”

“Understood.”

“But—“

“Go, Leona.” 

She pouts, but does as ordered, quickly waving goodbye as Mari drags her away. Alexandria draws her wand, putting up some kind of ward.

“How’d she handle it?” She asks promptly. “Killing?”

_I’m not even surprised that she knows._

“Not well at all.” I answer honestly. “She didn’t hesitate casting a fatal spell, but handling the consequences debilitated her.”

“Will she be a liability on the assault team?”

“Yes.” I close my eyes. “But a liability that must be worked around. Her abilities and knowledge are invaluable to us, and I would not trust any other magus bar yourself to work with us, and I doubt you can join us. Yet we do need a magus.” 

“I hadn’t wanted this lifestyle for her.” Alexandria whispers. “But there is no choice, at least for now. You will keep her out of combat when she moves to Alune, won’t you?”

I blink. “You knew?”

“She would not attach to you so strongly if she wasn’t intending to go with you.” She smiles, but it is bittersweet. “And I have suspected for quite some time that she has no wish to remain in Arcacia.” 

“Will you stop her?”

She shakes her head. “I will not trap her here.” 

“Your family, though? She is the Heiress, even if not officially named, and your only child—“

“I do not particularly care for any of that.” She says bluntly. 

I study her quietly, then nod.

“You do not protest, then, that I take her in as a sister?” 

“I had hoped that you would marry her.” She says, shrugging. “But in lieu of that…a familial relationship is perfectly acceptable.” 

I smile slightly. “I will take care of her.”

She inclines her head. “Now, I can believe that. You should rest now, Yuki, so that you can train with Mari tomorrow.”

I nod. “I shall. Until next time, Alexandria.”

“Indeed.”

“Oh, one last thing. I was interested in a few books…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify for those who were wondering why the first fight ended so quickly -- for all her bravado, Leona isn't accustomed to fighting to kill, whereas Yuki is. They're still pretty close in power.
> 
> Also, a lot of changes coming to my side stories soon. Stay tuned!


	113. (4.4.4) Dream Cycle, Part 3

#  **4.4.3 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Dream Cycle, Part Three**

“I’m off to the Academy, Yuki, Mari!”

I smile at her. “Have fun, and be safe, alright?” 

She beams. “I will! Bye-bye!”

“…You think she’s taking this sibling thing too far?” Mari asks, once the girl in question departs.

“It’s pretty cute.” I shrug. “I don’t mind.” 

_It feels good, too, in a strange way._

“Maybe she just has a crush on you?”

I snicker. “I’m the wrong gender for that.”

“Oh.” Mari smiles slyly. “You must be disappointed.”

I laugh. “Ew, no, she’s my sister — hey, what’s that weird look?” I trail off as I realize she’s staring wide-eyed at me. 

“I’ve…I’ve never heard you laugh before.” She glances away. “Not a sincere laugh, anyways.”

_Right…she was there when I was interrogating Akiyama._

“I suppose not. Should I stop?”

“Absolutely not!” Mari immediately shuts me down. “If anything…I’d like to hear it more often.” She smiles. “It’s a nice laugh, Yuki.”

“I will keep that under consideration.” 

_…_

“So we’re supposed to train together?” Mari asks curiously.

“…Yeah. Dunno what we’re to do, though.”

She groans, leaning back on the synthetic grass. “We didn’t think this through very well, did we? We already work well together.”

That’s true. Between all the exercises we’ve done together in training with Katsuo as well as the amount of hands-on experience we have working, Mari and I already work very well together. She follows my lead like second nature and I’m accustomed to leveraging her strengths where they are most effective. Under my direction, she has transformed from a blunt hammer to a precise spear. In some ways, our ability to work together outweighs that of even my synergy with Setsuna. 

But...

“You aren’t really accustomed to playing around my Ice, and I’m not used to using it around others.” I point out. “I’ll have to figure out how to incorporate it into what we can already do. The combat styles are totally different.”

“You’re more of a mid-range fighter with your Ice as opposed to a close-range style with your Wind, right?”

“That’s one of the differences, yeah. I’m also a more defensive fighter, seeking attrition battles over overwhelming force. There’s also the magic to keep in mind.”

Mari frowns. “Will we still be able to work together with those conflicting styles?”

“Of course.” I smile slightly. “I already have a few ideas. And it isn’t like I can’t use my Wind element at all, you know? I bled for that. I’m not far from a genuine Mastery. Ice may be who I am, but I can be more than that, too.”

She blinks, stunned. “I’m…surprised to hear that from you. With how close you are to your aberration.” 

I shrug. “I suppose. Anyways, let’s start trying some of our ideas out.”

“As you wish, captain.” 

…

The first member of the strike team arrives shortly after noon.

“Who’s there?” I snap out, sensing the presence of an unknown magus having entered the room. 

“You have sharp instincts. Good.” The invisible magus reveals themselves to be a young man who I’d approximate at twenty years old, with brown hair and brown eyes. “I believe you are the ninja component of our little party?”

I relax slightly, seeing that he matches the description in the files I was given. “You are...Charlie, are you not?”

His eyes widen. “You know this...how?”

“Lady Dawn.” I reply shortly and honestly.

“Ah, that explains much. Well, I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, and I do not know yours.” 

“Yuki.” I say lightly. It’s best not to associate Aspen with anything we’ll be doing.

“Mari.” My friend curtsies, following my lead. 

“Excellent.” He rubs his hands together. “I heard we’ll be having a ‘ninja’ and a ‘magus’ half, right? Who’s the third of yours?”

I nod. “Leona will complete our ninja half.”

“Wait, as in Leona Dawn?”

“Yes.”

“Heh, that little girl has grown up, huh? I met her three years ago...she’s still a student, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” I confirm. “And a mage-knight besides.”

“Damn. Wonder if she’s still as clean a duelist as she used to be?”

I smile slightly. “I’m sure you’ll have the opportunity to find out.”

“Neat. Well, why don’t you guys tell me a bit of what you can do and I’ll show you a bit of what I can do?”

...

Charlie is a stealth specialist. While not on par with anything a properly trained ninja can do, his magical toolbox provides us with more variety and protection than not having it would. More importantly, he’s trained in countering magical means of detection and protection, so his knowledge is invaluable. We spend a few hours talking about some of the obstacles we’re likely to fight, and he proves to be both patient and knowledgeable.

The second member of our team arrives closer to dinnertime.

“Oh? They pulled you for this mission, Charlie? I’m surprised they thought you were good enough.”

The man in question rolls his eyes. “Nice to see you too, Flora.” 

The newest member is a petite redhead that would remind me of Setsuna if I couldn’t feel her intense power boiling under the surface.

“You must be our _War Mage_.” 

Her face brightens up upon seeing me. “That would be correct! You two are the Alunian contingent, right? A pleasure to meet you.”

“Charmed.” I bow, Mari following suit.

“Excellent!” Flora crows gleefully. “I have so many questions to ask you two!”

I smile slightly. “I won’t get into anything sensitive, but general questions are fine.” 

Her head bobs rapidly. “You guys use the four elements, right?” 

“Yes.” I answer, amused. “Although there are quite a few exceptions...”

...

“I can’t wait for the simulations. I’d love to see what you guys can do firsthand.” She says eagerly.

“Should be tomorrow, right?” Mari asks. 

“Yes.” Charlie answers. “Soon. And I believe the last guy’ll be here…tomorrow morning?” 

“Do you know him as well, Charls?” 

“Yeah. It’s Martin.” 

“Oh, it’s been a while since I’ve seen him.” Flora says, interested. “Is he still with that girl?”

“Naw, they broke up a while back.” 

“I had some questions of my own.” I interject, before they can start getting into gossip. “What exactly is a ‘War Mage’? I only know the term, but not what it represents.” 

She smiles. “Glad you asked! Well, there are three conditions one must meet before becoming a War Mage. Firstly, you must be at least at the Magician ranking. Secondly, you must have experienced battle combat at least once. And, thirdly, you must have undergone the _Magikana_.” 

“Magikana?”

“It’s a ritual that increases your mana intake to artificially increase power at the cost of control.” Leona explains, walking in. “Good evening…Flora, is that you?” 

“Leona?!” 

“Oi, what about me?”

“Who are you?” The blonde grins. “Just kidding, Charlie. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Are you guys part of the strike team?”

“That we are! And so are you, little Leona!” Flora reaches over, patting her head. “You’re all grown up now.” 

“Stoooop…” She groans, slapping her hand away. “I’ve reached my majority already. Stop treating me like a kid!” 

“But you’re just so cuuute!” 

I glance at Mari, curious to see her reaction, and am surprised to see a slight, fond smile on her lips. 

_Right. She has a little sister of her own, doesn’t she? It had slipped my mind for a moment…_

_But still…that ritual, ‘Magikana’. I should look more into that later, once all of this is over._

…

The final team member arrives early in the morning. Having gone to bed shortly after dinner, I’d found myself with little to do but wander around and make sure that everything is in place. 

“Identify yourself.” I warn.

“H-Huh!? I’m…My name is Martin. I’m…”

“The third member of the strike team.” I finish, recognizing the physical description of the third member. “You’ve arrived.”

“I’m…not late, am I?”

“No. We’re due to start in…eight hours and thirty four minutes.”

“Whew. Well, then I shall see you at that time.” 

I watch as the strangely shy black-haired man departs.

“...That’s the Shield? Interesting...”

...

“We’re all here. Excellent. Catherine will begin running the simulation in five minutes. We shall brief within the simulation for the same of those of us unfamiliar with the target. Are there any questions?” Alexandria asks.

“It will be the six of us only, right?” Mari asks, gesturing at the Magus and Ninja teams.

“Right.”

“Then...who is the leader?”

“Yuki is.” The spellweaver says, to immediate protest from the Magus half. “Silence.”

Her command is immediately followed.

“Mari will not follow anyone except Yuki.” The Storm Mistress nods firmly, agreeing. “Normally, I’d just make her, but there are some special, classified circumstances that prevent that. Our Ninja half also has prior experience with infiltrating, given that they managed to infiltrate past the border to make contact with us. Given their unique methods, they’d be taking point anyways. You have a certain amount of autonomy, but listen to him. If we prove to have problems then we can adjust appropriately, but this will be our default. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Their objections all seemed to stem from my apparent age and experience rather than that I was a ninja. So if we can handle this well, they should have no problem with me. 

“I’m ready.” The magus called Catherine opens her eyes, irises shimmering a neon pink. “Please hold hands.”

We gather in a loose ring, Leona and Mari to either side of me. 

“Relax…and…” 

The incantation is lost to me as my vision fades to black.

…

“Hey.”

I glance back as a hand rests on my shoulder. Flora. 

“Something wrong?”

“I don’t mean to look down on you.” She smiles slightly. “I’m just not used to giving up the reins.”

“I understand completely.” I say softly. “I would be the exact same way.”

“No hard feelings?”

“Of course not.”

“Good.” She steps back, and I return my gaze to the fort in front of me. It’s a massive structure, that’s for sure — though the exact details are hidden by a sizable wall of stone. Massive diamond-shaped glass mirrors are fused into the wall, creating an odd but nonetheless impressive aesthetic. I narrow my eyes. No, that isn’t glass. Those must be…crystals. Magical foci. 

At the edges of my vision lie a sprawling forest that surrounds the fort. This must be within the border divider. They don’t go very deep, though — a white fog cuts us off from the outside.

_That must be the edges of the simulation._

“Did Catherine base this simulation off of the written information you gave us?” I ask.

“Mostly.” Alexandria answers. “She had more information than you do. We have a one-time opportunity to see how you react to surprises on the mission, so…”

I nod. “Alright. But otherwise, this simulation is fairly close to what we might actually expect, right?”

“Mostly.” She warns. “There’s plenty of things that can’t be accounted for. We can only guess at the actions of people. Perhaps in the real mission, a patrol might decide to take a different route. Someone might sleep in. Someone might be wandering around. A whole different group could attack simultaneously. A surprise inspection. We can’t account for all of that, though we’ll throw lots of different things at you to help you learn to deal with the randomization. We have the time, after all.” 

“Of course.” I nod. “Do you mind if our first run is a ‘limit-test’ run?” I pause. “That’s a question I ought to ask all of you, actually, as it will most likely result in a team wipe-out.” 

“A ‘limit-test’ run?” Leona asks, curious. 

I nod. “One where we force things to go as wrong as possible and see how long we can survive. We have the luxury for it within the simulation and I’d like to see how capable everyone is fighting for their lives. Of course…it will likely result in our simulated deaths, which I’ve come to realize is not pleasant.” 

“You ninja have terrifying minds.” Flora mutters, then smirks. “Sounds like fun. We’re all in.” 

“We are?!” The other two object. 

“I’ll do whatever you do, captain.” Mari says agreeably. 

Leona nods. “I’m also in.”

“They’re in.” Flora speaks for the rest of her team. 

“Ugh...” Martin mutters. 

“Whatever...” Charlie sighs. 

Alexandria nods. “Lead however you wish, Yuki.” 

“Great. Well, let’s brief quickly on the known defenses. We’ll get to see most of them in action, after all...”

…

“Ready?” 

“Yes.” 

“Go, Mari!” 

Having snuck around to the back, then up to the wall using Charlie’s stealth-based magic, Mari winds up a massive sparking kick before blasting a hole through the great walls that we quickly slip into.

“ _Telekinesis Control Field.”_

I materialize a handful of icicles in mid-air, Leona seizing them with her magic before launching them at ultra-high velocities towards the shocked pair of guards. Each icicle hits true at center mass, letting me manipulate them to inflict instant, crippling injury and death before they can cast a single spell.

I glance at Leona even as everyone storms in, spreading out — the magus contingent beginning to scan for detection wards and traps — but she seems unaffected, returning my gaze evenly.

_Were her eyes always that...blue? That can’t be right…so what’s going on?_

It isn’t the red of hostile possession, though, so I brush it aside for now. 

“All clear, but enemy reinforcements will undoubtedly be coming. That wasn’t exactly a stealth entrance.” Charlie reports.

“Vector? Count?”

“Five and seven. Two each!”

Four icicles materialize to either side of me, and Leona gathers them with her magic, too, pulling them back. 

The second they burst through the doors, four projectiles are unerringly hurled, and all four go down. 

“We’re supposed to maintain the fort in good condition so that we can use it, then? Then…split up. We’ll see how far we can make it in, shall we?”

“Understood. We’ll go in through there.” Flora agrees, gesturing at where the guards ran in from. 

“Alright. Let’s move!” 

The magus contingent enters through the ground-level rear entrance.

I glance up. 

“Leona.”

“Yes?”

“Are there any magical traps or barriers blocking us from accessing the second floor?”

“…Not that I can tell, why?”

“Let’s go.”

…

The door slams open, and I immediately block a lance of fire with a wall of Ice. 

“Mari, Leona, counterstrike!” 

“Lightning Wards down!” Leona shouts, the sound of shattering glass accompanying her. “Burn them out!” 

Mari launches a massive bolt of lightning into the room, a half-dozen explosions ringing out as the walls glow with electricity. I shield the others from the shrapnel and heat with another raised wall of Ice, then drop it at Mari’s nod. 

“Clear!” 

Mari _moves_ in a streak of light, entering the room through the smoke and dust.

“Clear!” She calls. 

With the second confirmation, Leona and I move into the room, scanning the entrances and exits for hostiles. 

_The first Clear is to ensure that Mari doesn’t run into anything magical. Leona gives that signal._

_The second signals the termination of hostiles. Mari takes care of that._

A simple system. Leona locally shorts out the Lightning Wards on the walls and floors, which prevent electricity flowing through them. Then Mari nukes the room with lightning, using her innate sensory abilities to precisely target opponents. 

If something hasn’t blown up, Leona casts a smoke or explosion spell, giving Mari the cover she needs to go on the attack. I dissolve the Wall as she charges through, then put it back up to defend Leona and myself. We’ve powered through sixteen rooms with this strategy. 

“Lightning Wards down! Go!” 

A bolt of Lightning— 

A massive explosion hurls us all back, a feminine scream of pain echoing in front of me as something slams into me. 

“Kh…!” I call on my Etheria without a second thought, a truly powerful wall separating us from the room we tried to break into. “Mari! Leona! Are you alright?” 

“Been better.” Mari grimaces. Her arm is riddled with lacerations — she must have held it between the explosion and her. “Leona’s fine, but unconscious.” 

The girl in question was what had hit me — she’s bleeding from the head, but otherwise seems uninjured. 

“You protected her?” I’ve no doubt that Mari could have dodged if she needed to, with her insane reflexes. 

“Of course.” She glances at the wall separating us. “They cast some kind of exploding spell. My attack never landed.” 

“I should have anticipated someone firing first.” I mutter. “The Lightning Wards still seem down, so—“ 

“On your mark.” 

“Go.”

A small hole appears in the wall, which Mari fires through. 

“…Tch. Only got two. The rest must have shielded.”

“Count?”

“Four.” 

“And below us?”

“Below us…? No one nearby.”

“Guard Leona.” I rise to my feet as a spell splashes against my wall. 

“Captain?” 

“I’m not playing around anymore.” 

_You people hurt my sister._

Etheria surges through my body. Snarling, I phase through the Ice wall, sprinting low to the ground. A blast of fire washes harmlessly off of me as I call upon Luna, lunging towards the nearest magus. He calls upon a translucent dome to stop me, but the second Luna brushes it, the whole thing freezes solid.

I phase through it seamlessly a moment later, impaling the mage against the wall as the icy dome surrounding us thickens. A second stab ensures the magus’s death as I freeze the ground underneath me before slipping through it to the floor beneath me, spells crashing into the wall above me.

Back on the first floor, I bring Sol to bear, slamming the tip of the staff into the ceiling. Ice spreads rapidly from the point of propagation.

“ _First Bloom. Blizzard._ ” 

I snap through the floor a moment later and am greeted by the sight of four pulped bodies and an utterly ruined room. 

_Mages can’t shield against Etheria._

I smile darkly.

_Good to know._

…

“You’re awake, Leona?”

She nods, eyes clear. “Mari…woke me up. I’m okay. If I could take a moment to recenter, though, that’d be good.” 

I nod. 

“Mari said you would tend to her injuries?”

“Yes.” I quickly move to the girl in question, taking her arm in my hands. It doesn’t take too long for me to fix the lacerations.

“We’ve cleared sixteen rooms so far, not bad at all.” Mari mutters. “But it’s been getting a lot harder. I think they’ve leaked our strategy via telepathy.”

I curse under my breath. I hadn’t even thought of that. 

“So a stealth approach really is the only route.” I mutter. “How thoughtless of me…” 

“Reinforcements just broke past my perimeter alarm ward.” Leona reports calmly, but with a hint of panic in her eyes.

“Count?” 

“Two dozen, rapidly increasing.” 

“Looks like we’re aiming for our secondary objective, then. Leona, locate the other team.”

She nods, unsealing a trio of tiny vials from subspace. Popping their tops, she smears the crimson contents on her palm, then slams them on the ground and focuses.

“First floor, about fifty meters ahead.”

“Let’s rendezvous with them.”

“…Just Flora. I can’t get a reading on the other two.” 

“Dead, then?”

“…Likely.”

I nod in acceptance. “We continue with the mission.” I feel a twinge of sadness at letting down the mages, letting down Flora, but ruthlessly shove it aside. If I hurry, we can save her, too.

“All ready?”

“Yes.”

Leona melts a hole through the iron walls, and we jump through to the floor below. 

“Cleared.”

“Cleared.” 

“Looks like they’ve passed us already. Let’s follow.” 

Four more rooms go by—

“Flora!” Leona hisses. 

The War Mage is glowing with energy, emerald eyes blazing with power. Upon seeing her, and the rest of us, she powers down.

“The other two…” 

“We’re continuing with the secondary mission.” I say tonelessly. “Enemy reinforcements have the place surrounded by now.”

“Does that plan involve us surviving?” She asks. 

I incline my head. 

“We’ll survive the initial spell. No promises for what comes after.” 

“Understood.” 

“Hold them off here, everyone.” I order, my Ice already spreading across the ground. Leona immediately begins throwing up a set of wards, and Anna begins gathering magic to her. Without warning, she launches a fast-moving red beam that ricochets off the walls and around the corner, eliciting a scream of pain. 

“Leona, get me to the top.” 

“Understood.” She extracts her staff from subspace and pulls mana into herself. “ _Super Charge Beam!”_

A pure white beam of light erupts, carving a small hole straight to open sky before crashing against the outer walls. 

“Thanks.” I say quietly, then leap straight up, sealing the hole beneath me with Ice as I begin pulling together my Etheria, simultaneously calling on the surrounding magic. The pain is — I drown it out with my Veil. Energy burns through me, simultaneously tearing me apart from the inside and knitting my flesh together, nerves screaming with pain.

_Humans weren’t meant to wield this level of power._

Another jump takes me to the outside, the top of the fortress. Qi, magic, Etheria — all flow around me, into me, through me, as I dive deep into my Ice, my Veil— 

And when I’m ready, I jump into the air. A bladed staff of Ice materializes in my hands, and I instinctively point it down and call out my technique— 

**_“Absolute Zero.”_ **

_…_

“Everyone alive?”

“What the hell was _that?!”_

“Something wrong, Flora?”

“That spell you just casted…it felt…different. I’ve never…felt anything like—” 

“Worry about that later. We have a window. So let’s go.” 

Quickly, we escape over the wall and back into the forest. As everyone escapes into cover, I glance back.

“ _Shatter_.” 

The Ice covering half of the fortress shatters, covering our escape as tons of Ice come falling to the ground. 


	114. (4.4.4) Dream Cycle, Part 4

#  **4.4.4 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Dream Cycle, Part Four**

“We are now entering reflection mode.”

The world shifts around me, and I find myself back with the original six, plus Alexandria and Catherine.

_I couldn’t tell that I was in a simulation while I was in it. That is some truly scary magic._

“That was...enlightening.” Alexandria says neutrally.

“I could’ve done a lot better.” Charlie rubs his head ruefully. “Got taken out by a stray spell.” 

“Piercer.” Martin volunteers. “Blind and around a corner. But the rest of you survived, right?”

“We were able to successfully complete the secondary objective.” I say. “For a limit-test, not half bad.”

Catherine nods serenely. “It is time for reflection. Let us follow the Magus Team first, as their story ends faster.” 

They collectively wince. 

Suddenly, I feel my body grow light. Raising an arm, I realize that my skin is frightfully pale. 

“OooOOooOoo.” Leona floats through the front of my body, sending a cold shiver down my spine. 

“What the fuck?!” 

“We’re ghosts!” She says gleefully. 

“We can watch what happened this way.” Flora interjects with an amused smile as Leona floats through Mari. The Storm User tries and fails to grab her.

“Magic is strange.” She mutters, looking down at herself. 

“Come on! You’re going to miss out!” 

“So this was the entrance point.” I muse, watching Leona and I mow down the guards. Moving past everyone, I float through the walls, watching as guards and reinforcements make their way towards us as others prepare to hold their points. 

We watch as the Magus team breaks through, launching spells through the doorway. Martin shields effortlessly with a multicolored, multilayered shield, leaving Flora free to launch devastating spells that burn and crush their enemies. Charlie remains mostly invisible, but constantly talks — relaying enemy movements, information, and positioning as well as threat levels. 

It works well for about ten rooms until they start fighting around a corner…then a blue bolt ricochets off a wall, underneath the shield, and strikes Charlie in the leg as he moves to dodge. It severs the limb from his body, and he goes down screaming. The distraction serves to disrupt Martin for a critical second, and as he turns his shield to better cover the fallen magus, a piercer sizzles through the wall and right through his chest. 

Flora responds by leaping out into the hallway, spells washing right off of the power she radiates as she stops casting to injure and begins outright tearing apart the bodies of enemy magi through some unknown means. 

“The hell is that?” I mutter. 

“Raw pure magic.” Leona murmurs. “It’s counter-able. You can dodge the area of effect, you can distract the opposing magus, you can even defend it with a couple esoteric shields — but it’s hard, especially when you’re unprepared. It’s really, really hard to pull off though. You can’t do it without the Magikana, that’s for certain.”

“I see.” 

Upon clearing her opponents, she turns to try and save her teammates. Martin’s already passed, and although Charlie managed to stop the bleeding from the spell, there seems to be some kind of secondary curse effect, and neither of them are able to do anything before he expires. 

“…Next, the Ninja Team.”

“Wait, what happened after that?”

“I cried.” Flora says bluntly. “Then kept going. Didn’t run into anyone before you guys found me.” 

“Oh.”

The simulation snaps back to the beginning, and I watch myself leap up, kicking a window out. Leona and Mari follow, and we begin our clearing.

“That’s an interesting strategy.” Flora remarks. “Brutal and kinda hamfisted, but it works.”

“That’s the ninja way.” Leona intones, eliciting a smirk from the woman.

“It worked for quite some time.” I grimace. “I had forgotten to account for the fact that a sizable contingent of the opposing mages were capable of telepathy. They apparently managed to get wind of what was going on. Guess they’re keyed into the local manastream.”

_The manastream. According to Leona, it is essentially a specific usage of the external mana to transmit or receive information. Amongst other things, it is how Clairvoyants receive their visions, since they are naturally more sensitive to the manastream._

_Essentially, everyone within the wards is able to receive that information. But most mages can’t do that by themselves...are one of the requirements for working at a communication fort telepathic ability, or...?_

“Was someone really able to transmit information that quickly? I think there was less than three seconds between the Lightning Wards going down and Mari entering the room at super-speed.” Leona frowns. “There has to be another source somewhere. But what, or who?”

“Leona, Mari, can you search for them? I’m going to see what caused that massive explosion.”

“On it!”

The two ghosts dive into the walls, and the rest of us continue watching.

“What the...?” I lean forward, watching some soldiers bring in a wrapped package before fleeing. As the Lightning Wards pop, a magus immediately launches it towards the entrance, and it violently explodes as Mari’s electricity impacts it.

“That must have been coordinated.” I scowl, watching Mari shield Leona from the explosion with a quick, powerful release of qi. It’s not quite enough to stop her arm from getting slashed, though. Ironically, it’s Mari’s hand getting bashed into Leona’s face from the force of the explosion that knocks her unconscious.

Flora nods. “So they have some kind of central observing system. That timing was too slick.”

“Holy shit—“ Charlie cuts himself off as I phase through the Ice wall, tearing apart the mages and utterly ignoring their defensive effects.

“Wha—“ Flora curses under her breath as my final spell triggers, the three surviving magi being shredded to pieces. “Lightbringer, what the fuck was that?”

“I was upset.” I say simply. “They hurt my friends.”

“Remind me to never get on your bad side.” Martin mutters, looking green as I direct everyone to retreat outwards.

That isn’t anything compared to the startled reactions when I cast _Absolute Zero_ , though.

“What the — what the _fuck_ —?!”

“Lightbringer...”

“That’s what that was? God…it froze _everything_ . The walls, the ground, the people…look, even the _wards_ are frozen. Power falls off sharply after the second floor, though.”

“Wait just a minute! Pause! Yuki! What the fuck?!”

Leona’s ghost zips out from inside the mansion and points a finger accusingly at me. “Where did you — when did you learn to cast an A ranked spell?! What the hell?!” 

I pat her ghost self on the head. “About twenty minutes ago.”

“That’s such bullshit! I haven’t even scratched high-B!” 

“That’s okay. As your older brother, I have to give you something to aspire to.”

“You guys are so weird.” Flora palms her face. A moment later, Mari slips through the wall, looking far more serious.

“Found them, captain.”

“Take us to them.”

As it turns out, they’re located on the third floor, within a central control room — two mages, one with an incredibly intricate projection of the mansion and one with their hand to their ear. All of it is frozen solid.

“Not only did it freeze the wards...it froze magical projections, too?”

“They were keeping track of us the entire time.” Mari mutters. “The second they knew.”

“So if we lose stealth...it’s game over. Everyone gets alerted and reinforcements get called in, and they can hunt us down.”

“Is this a confirmed defense?” 

“It isn’t.” Alexandria says, phasing into the visible spectrum. “However, it’s been observed as a defense in enough bases to plan as though they definitely have at least one comm-map pair.”

“At least one? So launching a stealth attack is our top priority, then, above everything else. And they have to be one of the first killed, if not the first. Things just got more complicated...”

**Speaking of complicated things, Yuki, mind explaining to me what that spell was?**

_I do, actually. I’m bound not to speak of the specifics._

**Interesting. Because that spell reminds me a lot of the True Magics.**

_Leona mentioned that briefly to me, but only in the context of familiar spirits. What is that?_

**Those…are the powers wielded by the progenitors of magic. They bent the world to their will, and every spell-cast was a miracle in of itself. They made the best of us look like amateurs. And that spell, Yuki, A-ranked status aside, looked a lot like that. You did not perform magic upon the world. No, what you did was dangerously close to bending the world with your magic. What was that?**

_I truly can’t share. I’m physically incapable of it._

**I see. We will need to talk about this later. This is even more vital to hide than the rest. Catherine will wipe the Magus Team’s memories of it now.**

_Understood. Wipe Leona’s mind, too, please? It isn’t that I don’t trust her, but—_

**I understand. Do what you must in the assault, but if you can withhold your full power, it would probably make your future far easier. If the Highborn gets wind of this…hell, if your own government gets wind of this…you would be in real trouble.**

_Agreed. Now that I understand what it looks like…I will certainly refrain from doing it unless necessary._

The simulation loops — the magi of the team blink, but seem to refocus immediately. When I look around, I realize that Alexandria has turned invisible again.

_There’s that potential problem averted._

“Well, let’s see when they’re expected to trigger, shall we? If we rewind the simulation and—“ 

“The map half detects living beings via the wards.” Charlie informs me. “Even a stealth approach will be challenging. They’ll know exactly when we enter, if they’re paying any attention at all.” 

“You know of these?” I ask.

“I’ve had to assault a fort before.” He nods. “It’s hard to get around, really hard. There are magical ways to subvert it, but they’d be doubly on guard, given how weak the border is right now. Couple that with the rumors of the destroyed invasion force…” 

“How specific is the detection?”

“Huh?”

“Is it simply life forces that they detect? Magical power?” 

“Life forces. I guess…souls, maybe? Sentient beings.” 

I close my eyes. “If we kill a guard, we can slip a person in, then?” 

Flora considers it. “If we’re fast enough. It would look like just a glitch — the map projection ward is good, but not perfect, so that might be okay. And this is of course assuming that they have it up — it’s really challenging to maintain a map projection for long. Even if the pair is there, if we strike when their guards are down…”

“We’ll hit them at midnight.” I say simply. “Their weakest time period.”

“It’s also our weakest.” Charlie retorts dryly. 

“Mari and Yuki can function as the heavyweights.” Leona counters. “We’ll have to change around the groups, in that case. If we split up — and we should, six people is far too many to be in one place — then Mari and Yuki can be in different groups.” 

“Wait, but…we can’t do that, can we?” Flora asks. “How would we sneak in groups against that map projection?”

“I’m starting to think we should move to immediately eliminate the map-comm pair instead.” I mutter. “Planning around them takes too much effort. We sneak some people in, assassinate those two, then take it apart from two fronts. Is that possible? How can we get past the map-comm pair?” 

“Keying yourself into the wards is one way. You could stop yourself from being detected by it, but that’s at least as complex as actually maintaining the projection.” Charlie answers.

“Leona?”

“I could probably do it. No more than two people, though, and not Mari.” She smiles apologetically at the girl in question. “You have a bit too much presence for me to slip you in easily.” 

“Take me.” I say. “I can suppress my aura to nearly nothing.”

She nods. “We can experiment with that.”

“Any other ways?”

“I can craft a spell to become invisible to the ward.” Flora murmurs thoughtfully. “But it definitely wouldn’t work on anyone except me.”

“How confident are you?”

“I’ve done it before. I can do it.” 

“An assassination on the comm and map pairing...but if we kill the comm pairing, would the lack of telepathic communication alert someone?”

Leona grimaces. “I’m fairly good at the mind magics. I can hypnotize her.”

“I guess there’s little to do now but see if we can do it.” I shrug. “And, well, see if we can survive failing.”

“Then..let’s go.”

...

Silently, I yank Leona down. A moment later, one of the guards turns the corner of the wall. We wait quietly as he walks past, before turning the opposite corner and exiting out of sight.

“Pay attention to the cycles.” I hiss. 

“Sorry! This is a lot harder than it looks!” She mutters, raising her wand into the air again — and, specifically, against the ward barrier. Apparently, the wards begin on the inner section of the large wall surrounding the compound, so we’d been forced to scale it. It wasn’t hard, thankfully — I’d used my Ice to create little steps, then melted them once we were all up. Thankfully, the top part of the wall has those silly wall designs that let people like us hide behind them. No one’s even on the wall, so we don’t have to work around them. 

“How’s your spell going?” I ask Flora.

“Slow-going.” She whispers. “But well. I need maybe another five minutes.”

“Got it. Twenty seconds before the next patrol rounds the corner.”

And so the patrols come and go. They’re a bit irregular, annoyingly enough — there’s two distinct patterns just for the outside patrollers, and then we also have to be careful about the standard patrollers within the building. That we hadn’t had info on, so I’d kept both of them down and done absolutely nothing but watch for an hour, tracking and reaffirming cycles.

Halfway through, Leona had complained about how boring the whole thing was, upon which I gleefully informed her that we would be doing this for at least thirty hours on the day of, if possible.

The horrified look on her face made the whole thing worth it.

“Done.” Leona cheers quietly.

“I am as well.”

“Right. There’s two blind spots in the patrols in their current cycle, and neither are big enough for all three of us.”

“I can go invisible.” Flora says. “Where will you two go?”

I point out a spot behind one of the bushes. “We’ll go there, wait for the next patrol, then quickly scale the wall to access the second floor. Then we’ll need to jump and get to the third floor before the second floor’s patrol catches us. Lastly, we’ll need to hang onto the roof to dodge the third patrol. Understood?”

“Yep.”

“Flora, you should go there.” I point to the other blindspot. “You can meet up with us on the left side.”

“Understood.”

“Alright. Current cycle is ending in sixteen seconds. We’ll wait twenty seconds for the man to go around, then make our moves. Everyone ready?”

“Yep.”

“Alright. Let’s move, then. In twenty.”

The next patrol turns the corner.

“Ten…five…”

They turn.

“Go.”

Leona and I slip off the wall, a seven meter drop awaiting us that is easily handled with Reinforcement. Flora follows moments later, only the sound of her footsteps letting me know where she is as Leona and I slide behind the bushes.

“Clear.” I say close to a minute later. “Go.” 

This window is the tightest. We have to scale the balcony and make the jump before the second-floor patrol goes past the balcony. 

I quickly make my way to the left-side landing, using Reinforcement to easily make the leap. Holding my hand out to Leona, I catch her hand and pull her over.

“Third floor. Go.” 

I clamber onto the railing, then leap straight up and slightly out, catching the railing, Then I snag Leona as she makes the jump, throwing her up and onto the balcony.

“Good.” I whisper, slipping onto the floor. “Onto the roof. Hurry.” 

I jump once more, stabbing a small, hastily materialized Ice wedge into the tiles. It provides a handhold on the slopes of the roof. Leona follows at my gesture, holding onto my arm for support. A brief scratching sound informs me that Flora has made her way up, too. 

_Good thing my Ice is strong enough to hold this weight up._

The third-floor patrol walks past. A few seconds later, we drop down silently onto the balcony. 

_We have to cross the entire facility to reach our targets. At least we are on the correct floor, now._

“Doesn’t seem like we’ve been noticed yet.” I whisper. “Let’s go. Open the lock, Leona.”

_“Open.”_

The latch on the window slides open, letting us lift it from the outside to enter the fortress proper. 

“Forty seconds to the next. We need to pick a room and prepare to non-lethally subdue hostiles.”

Leona gestures at the room next to us. 

“Sure.” 

I knock on the door, to their stunned expressions. “Yo. Anyone in there?”

Silence greets me. 

“Coming in, then.” I open the door, scanning it as I prepare to move out of the way— 

It’s a bathroom.

I shut the door. “No good.” I immediately turn and knock on the door next to it. “Hello? Can I come in?”

Silence, again.

“Coming in.” 

I enter the room. Once again, there’s no one in there. 

“Get in.”

They slip past me, and I close the door.

“Leona, lock it. Simple lock.”

_“Lock.”_

The door snaps shut.

“What was that?” Flora asks. “I—“

“Shh.” 

Footsteps sound out in the hallway, eventually fading away.

“The patrol.” I explain dryly. “And it was to check if someone was inside, obviously.”

“And if someone was?” 

“Then I apologize and move on, of course.” I say. “No one’s going to be suspicious of someone who openly announces their intentions.”

“…That’s so dumb that it might just work.” Flora mutters.

I shrug. It’s a system I’ve used before, and I’m still alive. 

“Now what?” Leona asks. 

“We use the same system on every room we need to enter except for the final one, and any room near it. I don’t want them to know we’re there.”

…

It goes flawlessly. The only hiccup in our plan is when we walk in on an amorous couple, but they’re quickly stunned. Leona wipes their short-term memories, and we keep moving. 

“Two entrances into this room.” I murmur, tracing out the small projection that Leona’s thrown up from her own memories of the room. “Here and here. They’re basically the same, though. We should go through both at once for maximum shock value. Aim for non-lethal, but shoot to kill if they resist. We can’t afford them getting the word out.” 

“Understood.” Leona and Flora snap off. 

“Let’s disable the next patrol.” I say. “Prepare stunners.” 

Without warning, I open the door, nearly slamming into the patrol. 

“Ah! I’m so sorry!” I say, stepping up to the two surprised men. 

“Huh? Oh, it’s no problem…wait, who—?”

And by then, I’ve grabbed their collars and hurled them back behind me. Two red flashes indicate their stunning. 

“We have a minute. Go.” 

Quickly but quietly, we make our way down the hall, Luna held tightly in my hand. 

I gesture for Flora and Leona to take the far side, leaving me to take the close side. They make their way there, flashing a ‘ready’ sign. 

I raise three fingers. 

Two.

One.

The doors are swiftly opened, stunners flying off our mages’ wands as I blanket the room in frost. Caught off guard, the two opposing mages — both women — are knocked unconscious, the map projection between them fading. 

“Seal the doors, Leona. Strong seals.” 

_“Seal seams.”_

The doors fuse into the walls.

“Nice.” I mutter as she begins warding the walls, finally allowed to use more significant magic now that their best sensor is down. “Now, we don’t need the map projector…but I’ll hang onto them just in case.” Materializing an Ice spear, I impale the woman through the shoulder, staking her to the ground. 

“Is that really necessary?” Flora asks, wincing as a second spear goes into her other shoulder.

“Yes.” I say shortly. “We’ll be killing her once we confirm she has no use, anyways.” Another spear sinks into her thigh. “She won’t be awake to feel any pain, though.” The last spear goes into her other thigh, robbing her of all movement. 

“Paralyze her.” I point at the comm mage. “I don’t want her moving. We can’t hurt her since we need to keep her active so that Leona can manipulate her.”

“Right.” Leona nods. “I’m ready.” 

“Flora, revive her on three. Leona, the second that bolt hits her, hypnotize her.” 

“Yep.”

“Three…two…one…go!” 

_“Hypnotize.”_

“Got her.” The magus mutters, wincing at her head. The comm mage stands up, irises glowing a light red. 

“All good?” 

“Yeah, I just…huh—?”

A spell flies off of the fingers of the communication magus, tearing a hole right through Leona’s chest. Half a moment later, Luna stakes the comm mage into the fall wall, tearing through her heart. 

“ _Damn it!_ ” I snarl. “Flora, get on the roof, signal for Mari to get here _now_!” 

“What happened?!” She asks, even as she brings her staff up to do as I say. 

“She lost control of the hypnosis!” I curse. “Of course. Being a comm mage requires intense mental focus and ability. They’re _exactly_ the type of people who can break a possession! Stay with me, Leona!” 

I slap a hand over her heart as she chokes on her own blood, forcing Etheria through her. She spasms, her flesh forcefully knitting together, internal organs regenerating and blood restoring itself.

She gasps, taking in an unsteady breath, then chokes violently, spitting out blood. But her second breath is clear, as is her third. 

“I’m…I’m a-alive?” 

“What happened, Yuki?!” Mari asks, jumping down from a hole in the roof. Flora follows, looking a little worse for wear.

“Hypnotism failed.” I summarize quickly. “Take her out. She’s fine now, but not fit to keep fighting. I need the others to secure the perimeter and make sure no one gets out. We still have stealth on our side, but it won’t be long before people notice. Once you drop Leona off — she can relay the situation to the others — get back here. We need to subdue the rest as fast as possible. We’ll go top-down.” 

“Understood.” She picks up Leona in a bridal carry before exiting through the roof.

“Flora, I need you to hold this point.” Glancing sideways, I clench my fist, and Ice spreads from the spears I’ve embedded in the map mage, killing her painlessly. “Anyone who comes here…kill them quickly before they know what’s going on.”

“U-Understood.” 

“I’m back, Yuki.” 

“Let’s split up. No mercy, Mari.” 

She grimaces, but nods. “Understood.” 

“Then…” I call for Luna, but the weapon that materializes in my hand is not it. It’s shorter than Sol, a one-handed implement, although I sense that I could easily extend it if I wished. A bladestaff, the balance between physical and magical. 

_What are you?_

A whisper, soft and gentle, brushes against my mind. 

“...How fitting.” I grasp the newly christened _Moonlight_ , gesturing at the doors. “I’ll sweep the left. You sweep the right. Maintain stealth. Go.”

...

“All clear, captain.” 

I incline my head, Moonlight fading away in my hand. That marks everyone, then. We’ve killed everyone in the fort.

“Good work.” I say sincerely. She smiles sadly, drenched in blood that isn’t hers.

“I suppose so.”

  
  



	115. (4.4.5) Dream Cycle, Part 5

#  **4.4.5 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Dream Cycle, Part Five**

“That simulation was a success.” Alexandria congratulates. “Messy, but you do seem to have a mostly working plan.”

I nod. “Now we know to go for a straightforward assassination. The problems, of course, lie with any unexpected surprises.”

“Right. The following simulations, then, will be all about unexpected surprises. You already know to track patrol schedules, so we won’t bother shifting them around. That isn’t a guarantee that they won’t shift while you’re inside, though.”

“Of course.” I nod. “Something as simple as a bathroom break would throw things off. We’ll be sure to plan appropriately.”

“Good. We’ll be exiting the simulations for lunch, now. Please take the hour to relax, as we will jump right back into simulations once everyone is done.”

...

“Are you okay, Leona?” 

“I’m fine.” She rubs at the spot on her chest briefly. “It was...unexpected.” 

“I’d imagine.” I murmur, biting into the warm bread. Her hand brushes against my arm.

“Thank you.” She smiles shyly. “When you healed me, I could feel for just a moment how important I was to you. We haven’t known each other long, but I already feel like I can trust you with my life.” She swallows heavily.

“And I you.” I say seriously. “I can’t promise that you will not come to harm...but I do promise to you that you will live.”

“I believe you.” She smiles lightly. “Don’t make that promise though. We don’t have control of the battlefield. Anything can happen.”

“...We’ll see about that.” I mutter under my breath. 

...

The next simulations are filled with surprises. Despite that, though, the majority of the simulations succeed. In the ones that we fail, we accomplish our secondary objective every time except one, where an honest-to-gods Spellweaver so happened to be in a meeting with the two at the time. We lost Flora trying to make a safe retreat.

“I’m kind of relieved.” The War Mage mutters. I was getting worried we couldn’t fail, and it was starting to get me into a bad mindset.”

“In that case, I’m glad we failed.” I say dryly. “But we’re as prepared as we can get without more information.”

“Yes.” She smiles cheerfully. “Good work, commander.”

I glance at her. 

“That’s the first time you’ve referred to me as such.”

“You’ve earned it.” She grins. “See ya around.” 

…

The simulation ends abruptly, leaving us in the room once more.

“Yuki, can we talk?” I’m unsurprised to hear Mari request the second that she can see straight.

“Of course. Our room?” 

“Sure.”

…

“What’s up?” 

She walks past me, taking a seat on the bed. A quick gesture from her makes me realize I ought to follow her lead, and so I sit down next to her, turning to face her. 

“Is everything okay?” 

I blink. “What do you mean?” 

“You’ve…I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, but you’ve been a lot happier recently.” She cocks her head. “It’s good to see, Yuki, but…I’m worried, for some reason. Why have you changed?”

I glance down. “Now that you mention it…I hadn’t thought about it much. But you’re right, I have been. One moment.”

“Captain?”

“I’m going to check my Mindscape.” 

I dive, manifesting my avatar as I slip past the Veil.

“…What the—?”

_It’s..bright?_

My garden hasn’t changed much since I’ve seen it, except for the fact that there appears to be, of all the things, a miniature sun hovering in the center, casting a warm, golden glow across the icy expanse. Is this a result of the magic I’ve unlocked? Or of my newfound ‘sister’? Either way, it _would_ make me happier, having this light in my soul. But…when did it happen? And why is it here?

…Do I want it here?

I look down, watching the way my Ice glimmers.

_It’s not a bad thing, I suppose._

“I’ve changed.” I announce, opening my eyes. “It’s small, but significant.” 

“Does it have to do with...” She gestures around the room.

“Magic, yes. You’ve noticed how they revere the sun, the light?” 

“Yes?”

“Apparently that’s what my mind thinks should represent the presence of magic in my life.” I say dryly.

She snickers, then sobers. “Maybe that isn’t it, though. Maybe you’re happier because you have another reason to be.”

“You mean Leona?”

Mari nods firmly. “Exactly. Speaking of Leona...what’s your deal with that girl? Where’d that whole sibling thing come along?”

I glance at her. “Why’d you adopt Ayaka?”

She hums thoughtfully. “That’s how it is, huh?” 

I shrug. “If you were as soft then as you are now? Yeah.” 

She sighs tiredly. “Heh. Leona’s less of a lost duckling than that child, though.”

“Only because we’re here.” I point out. “Once she enters Alune, she’ll be in a foreign, hostile environment, and her magic will be sharply restrained by Magical Field Theory. She certainly won’t be helpless, but she won’t be nearly as strong.”

“That’s true.” She says thoughtfully. “To give up so much power...does she really not like it here that much?” 

I shrug. “You’d have to ask her. I know of her issues with Arcacia only in simple terms. There’s probably something far deeper that drives her to hate it so much.”

She nods. “I guess so, huh? Well, I’m not criticizing you, captain.”

“Just curious.” I finish. 

She cracks a smile. “You’ve got it.”

“Is that all you had to ask me?”

She pouts. “Well, when you put it like that, I’d love if you’d tell me what the heck that crazy spell you casted was. And, also, those new weapons you’re carrying around.” 

“Where to begin…?” I muse. “Well, let’s start with the things that are easily explained.” I call to reality the weapons that I’ve stored in my Mindscape. “This is Sol. This is Luna. And…this is Moonlight. I created all of them with my Ice Aberration…and a little something extra.” 

“Sol…Luna…?” She murmurs. “Where have you heard those words from? That isn’t exactly something native to our language.” 

“I…I don’t know.” I frown. “They just…seemed right?” 

“I...see. And Moonlight? That’s more conventional, but it’s…surprisingly romantic for you. Aphelion, too…but you said the sword gave you that name to call it…” 

“I have no idea.” I shake my head. “Moonlight gave me its own name, as well.” 

“Wait, the — that bladed staff gave you a name? Please materialize it for me again.” 

I do, and she immediately snatches it from my hands, flinching as she does so.

“It’s so cold…and...” She fumbles the staff before catching it, securing a better grip. “It’s...I can hear it speaking to me, too. A soft, gentle voice...how? Why?” 

I shrug. “I wish I understood. Perhaps a consequence of being created in an illusion world? Sol and Luna, at least, do not speak to me.”

“How curious…” She shrugs, giving it back to me. “Well, they’re your mysteries. I can help with one thing, though.”

“What?”

“I know where you might have heard Sol and Luna from.”

“Huh? Where?”

“It’s a…” She glances away. “It’s a children’s lullaby.”

“Your…” I frown. “I see. And you remember it?”

“I could never forget it.” She bites her lip. “Would you like to hear it?”

“Will you be singing it?” I ask lightly. 

“…I guess.” She winces, rubbing at her throat, then— 

_There was once a girl called Luna,  
_ _and she was the sweetest girl.  
_ _And she met a boy called Sol,  
_ _and they were inseparable.  
_ _Oh, if she had only known!_

_Luna could not go outside,  
_ _for the sun was far too bright  
_ _for her skin to possibly bear.  
_ _  
‘Come and play outside’  
_ _said Sol to Luna one day.  
  
_ _‘But I can’t, it hurts, I’m scared,  
_ _please don’t make me go.’  
_ _‘I promise it won’t hurt,  
_ _if you just do as I say.’  
_ _‘If you’re sure, I know,  
_ _you won’t let me go.’  
_ _‘I swear’ he said, so she—_

_Stepped into the light,  
_ _holding his hand within hers.  
_ _And she saw the Moon  
_ _and reached out for the stars,  
_ _and Sol dropped her hand from his,  
_ _and he watched her burn away.  
_ _There once was a girl named Luna,  
_ _and her dear brother was her murderer._

“That’s a children’s lullaby?” I ask disbelievingly. “That’s...horrifying.” 

She shrugs. “It’s the one I’ve known. I haven’t sung it to Ayaka for obvious reasons.” 

“Gods above.” I mutter. “I’d certainly hope not.”

_But the words, the music, they do sound familiar. But something’s strange about them. What, though?_

“I think that helped.” I say. “It feels familiar…but I am not sure what it’s missing.” 

“Missing?”

“It feels like something’s not right about it. I don’t know what, though.” I frown. “It’s strange. I should have perfect recall with my Mindscape, so…forgetting something? That shouldn’t be…”

“Then it’s a memory from before you generated your Mindscape, right?” She asks logically. 

“Of course.” I mutter. “I memorized everything I could recall upon creation, so whatever it was, I’d forgotten it before creating my Mindscape.” 

_So the memories most likely, then, are…what?_

“You don’t have to remember now.” Mari smiles gently at me. “We have other things to worry about. Anyways, that spell you casted? _Absolute Zero_ , you called it? What was it? It’s no magic I’ve ever seen before, but you’re hardly an experienced caster. And it definitely was not a pure qi technique.”

“You’re right.” I reply, glad for the change in topic. “It was something different, something new. You recall how intent is basically the only driving factor behind a spell, once the power requirement is taken care of?” 

Mari nods. 

“So long as magic is a component of the spell, you do not need magic to power it.”

“…Um, you’re going to have to explain that to me.”

“I powered it with Etheria.” 

Mari flinches. “Ah.” 

“And I’m now starting to realize that _all_ of my techniques take a little bit of Etheria.” 

That realization is something I want to beat myself up for. I hadn’t noticed at first — perhaps _because_ the casting was so _natural_ — but, without a doubt, even the tiniest uses of my Ice shave away tiny slivers of my life. 

“Then…you should stop casting, shouldn’t you?”

I smile sadly. “What’s the oldest Aberrant you know, Mari?” 

She freezes. 

“I thought it was strange. Why are Aberrations so unusually powerful? They’re merely different elements, no? Why do they express themselves so strangely? Why do Ice and Storm pierce magic so easily? Now, having casted _Absolute Zero_ …I understand now, I think. Aberrants lose a little bit of their Etheria, every time they cast. And the more you use it…the earlier you will die. To my knowledge, there is no Aberrant recorded that has lived past the age of fifty.”

_Although Hikaru may be able to break that chain by absorbing Etheria with her unique powers._

“So both of us, then.” She whispers helplessly. 

“I think it’s far more likely that we’ll fall in battle than from age.” I note. “But yes. Both of us…will probably not make it much past our prime years.” 

The brunette shivers. “I think I would have preferred not to know that.” 

“You’d wished to live longer?” I ask curiously. “I do not think I would have enjoyed living much longer than my current expectancy.”

“What will Setsuna do when you die, Yuki?” She whispers. 

_Ah._

“Us girls, Yuki, we’ve come to rely on you, you know? Enough to be willing to die for you. If you…if you were killed, it would be really…really hard on us.” 

“I don’t plan on dying, Mari.” I avoid answering her concerns directly. It’s something I don’t want to think about. 

“Very few people do.” She agrees. 

“… _Magia_.” 

“Huh?”

“You asked what my spell was. It was my first usage of _Magia._ ”

“What’s that mean?”

“The characters that compose it mean inner-balance-outer. A balanced spell, in other words, power directed by intent. It’s also a rough amalgamation of magic and qi.” I shrug. “I’ll admit to not having put much thought into it, though, but—“ 

“I like it.” Mari shrugs. 

“Then Magia it is.” I stare at my hands.

_Creating a method of energy manipulation that actively drains my Etheria…but the benefits…_

_This Magia…it’s dangerous, but I think I’ll need it. I already do need it._

…

**How did the simulations go?**

_They went well. We succeeded in all but that ridiculous Spellweaver one. I think I could have utilized Absolute Zero to complete the secondary objective, but…_

**It’s better if you did not. Are you available for discussion right now?**

I glance at Mari, who’s resting in the bed next to me. It seems like she didn’t take the news of her shortened lifespan well. 

_I am. I assume you wish to talk to me about the so-called True Magics?_

**Indeed.**

_I am en route to your room._

...

“You’ve discovered something in your research.” I ask. It isn’t a question.

“I have no idea at all how this was overlooked by the broader magical community. Perhaps it is because we usually do not play around with the soul, even for research.” She says dryly. “Nonetheless...I believe that Life Energy is a significant component of the True Magic that our ancestors wielded. It would explain their short life expectancies and the high fatality rate of students, for one.”

“Could that not be attributed to inefficiency in the instruction process and lower birth standards?”

“The first magical focusing tool, the wand, was created about five hundred years ago. At the same time, the school of energy manipulation that we know as _Magika_ was first brought into play. The two go hand in hand. No user of the True Magics ever used any such tool.”

“Yet I used one.” I say, materializing Moonlight.

“Which is why your spell merely reminded me of the True Magics.” She frowns thoughtfully. “But it was the feeling your spell gave off, more than anything. Here, I will provide an example.”

She raises her hand. “In a moment, I will cast a simple E-ranked fireball spell. I want you to focus on sensing the magic, as much detail as possible. Ready?”

“Go.”

A bolt of fire leaves her hand, singing the wall. 

“Hm…rather gentle, actually. I could feel your power build up as you drew magic into your hand, then a pulse as you released it. Like a wave, actually, in and out. Smooth and controlled.”

“That’s correct. That feeling is typical of your usual spellcasting. Now, I’ll use the magic directly from my core.”

She casts the same spell.

“A bit rougher. Instead of a wave, that was like…a well? The magic suddenly built up in your hand before being released. But that outer half felt the same, with a slightly different feeling to it, though.”

“Very good. Now, I can’t cast anything like the True Magics, but I can explain what I felt from you. All typical spells, casted either through the mana of the air or the magic in the core, have that ‘wave’ action. You are casting a spell upon the world. That’s why even invisible spells, such as the _Ranged Explosion_ spell, are avoidable by those capable of sensing magic. The build-up is sensed, and a capable magus can counter in time. This is also why the infamous _Magical Rend_ spell is so useful — the expulsion for the power used is exceptionally short, making it hard to react to.” 

“But what I did was different?”

“There was the build-up, a welling up of power.” Alexandria confirms. “But that was all. In other words, nothing connected your magical build-up. Your spell simply _happened._ ” 

“Huh? That can’t…that can’t be possible.” 

“That’s what I thought.” She says dryly. “But you did it. That’s what I meant, when I said you seemed to bend the world with your magic.”

I stare at my hands. “It’s so hard to believe that I can do something unreasonable like that.”

“Technically, any decent magus could do it.” The Spellweaver notes. “But they’d have to know how to manipulate their life energy well, and that _isn’t_ something most people know how to do. Even I do not know the process. And you’d obviously have to be willing to drain your life with every spellcast.”

_I suspect that certain spellcasts do exactly that. Those spells with anti-magic properties…B-ranked spells…It’s probably not very much, but…if you give a little bit every time…_

...

It’s only as I prepare for bed that I let the tight clamp on my emotions loosen a little bit, thinking of things I’d prefer not to in the midst of the mission.

Setsuna. Sayaka.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen them, hasn’t it? I miss them so much. I miss the way that Sayaka and I casually banter with each other, the way Setsuna and I just know what the other is thinking. It isn’t the idyllic school life of the magi, but the cutthroat, dangerous world of the ninja.

But I miss it. I miss them. I didn’t realize how much I would ache to see them again.

Annoyed, I shove my feelings back into the Veil. Worrying about them serves no use at all except for weak self-indulgence. I need to do what I have to do here, then get home and save them.

In theory, right after assaulting this communication fort, Mari and I could leave. We have a fairly good idea of many important things in Arcacia, and the knowledge we’d bring home would be valuable. Taking Leona with us would be equally useful, given that she is a knowledgeable, trained, intelligent magus.

But the threat discussed in the meeting — the possibility of a deadly plague — requires our attention. It’s a stratagem that Alune may not be aware of, and...it has the potential to be catastrophically effective. We need to find out as much as we can about it, if we can’t figure out a way to stop it.

It all comes back to the solution I’d first seen, that Leona had led me to—

_Revolution._

And this communication fort will be the first of many objectives for Lunaria. There’s a second thing that I must do as well, even if it means using Magia.

_Pierce the Great Wall._

I clench my fist. 

_We’ll make it happen. Soon._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last we have a name for Yuki's empowered Etheria techniques and spellcasts. 
> 
> To clarify:  
> 1) Magia directly consumes Etheria. It depends on how potent the ability is, but even the slightest use of it would take 'years' off of someone's life.   
> 2) Magia has inherent anti-magic and anti-qi properties simply because Etheria is on a different magnitude of power.   
> 3) This Magia is separate but similar to all B+ ranked magical casts in the sense that both use Etheria.   
> 4) Yuki can't cast proper magic due to a lack of belief in it. His belief in Etheria...?
> 
> As for that thing about Aberrations, where have we heard that before...? A person that loses their life as they use their abilities...?


	116. (4.4.6) Dream Cycle, Closing

#  **4.4.6 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Dream Cycle, Closing (Hikaru’s POV)**

“You at it again, Dawn?” Katsuo walks in, frowning as he sees me. 

“Yes.” I finish off my glass, staring moodily at the bottom.

I know that he still sees this kind of thing — children going off to war — as necessary, though regretful, and he knows I know that he does, even if I personally disagree. So he doesn’t lie to me or offer false platitudes, pouring himself his own wine instead. 

_I would have gone myself, had I known it would get that bad. Combat, I expected, but this?_

“It must be a good day today.” He muses. 

“Hm?”

“You’re using a glass.” 

“Ha.” 

“Setsuna and Sayaka returned safely.” He says, filling in the silence. “Granted, not in the best of shape, but they’re both fine now, and they reported that Yuki and Mari were in good health. And you know those two kids are the peak of this generation.” 

“They’re not ready to invade Arcacia.” 

“Yuki disagrees.” He retorts. “And that boy has a clear mind, if anything. Not surprised, though, not with his aberration.” 

“Or...he’s planning on sacrificing himself to return Mari. He’d consider that a successful mission.” 

Katsuo blinks. 

“Truly?”

“He would.” I drink deeply. “That’s what I’m worried about.” 

“You consider him your son, don’t you?”

I forgo the glass and go straight for the bottle. “Yes.” 

“Because…?” He glances at my stomach. 

“Yeah.” I hesitate. “Though even without that, I think I would have formally adopted him anyways. And I will, if — when he survives and comes back.”

“You care a lot about that boy…” He mutters, trailing off thoughtfully. 

“I do.” I agree. “You’d do well yourself, to find someone you truly cherish.” 

“You’re enough.” He retorts, and I’m momentarily flustered by his surprising, genuine honesty. 

“I…besides me, idiot.” 

“Oh, I have.” He throws the rest of his glass back and stands up. “She’s a silly girl, but she has a lot of potential. Reminds me of you, in some ways. Hopelessly naive and idealistic, and annoyingly clingy, sometimes, but—“ 

I scowl. “Well, Yuki reminds me of you, sometimes. Stupidly stubborn, blind to the emotions of others, and—“

“But we still care about them anyways.” He says, the faintest of smiles on his face.

“We do.” 

“…Perhaps I’ll follow you in your footsteps.” He muses, filling his glass once more. “Adopt her, if she wishes.”

“Really?” 

“Family is important.” He sighs tiredly, looking out the window. “I think Setsuna, of all people, will understand.”

  
  



	117. (4.5.1) Awakening, Part 1

#  **4.5.1 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Awakening, Part One**

Sunday. The holiest day of the mages. A day of celebration and peace. For the students, it is the reprieve before another grueling week at school. For the believers, it is the day of church, of prayer and faith.

“It’s been just over a week.” I scowl at the wall. “Nine days. But I feel like I’ve been here for an eternity.” 

“I know the feeling.” Mari agrees, a content sound falling from her mouth. She’s utilizing her own aberration to massage herself, for lack of a better term. “I’m surprised you’re letting loose with your emotions today, though. Usually that’s a nightly thing.”

“I’ve been wondering if I’ve restrained them too much.” I admit. “My magic...after all I’ve done, it’s impossible to say that I wasn’t born with a little of it inside of me.”

_Though I’m not sure how that’s even possible. Is it a quirk of my Ice Aberration, or something else...?_

“I’ve been wondering...maybe I’ve damaged my own magic by clamping down on my own emotions so much. Perhaps I should stop?” 

“Maybe.” Mari says gently. “But maybe not. You are naturally different, the same way I am.” She smiles sadly. “I will likely struggle with my control for the rest of my life. And you shall struggle with emotion, too, unless you completely reject your aberration outright.”

“That won’t happen.” I reply simply. Ice is far too important to me to throw away. For better or worse, it is what I am now. 

“I know.” She dips her head in acknowledgment. “You have to find the balance. You’re lucky in that you even can. But I think you can still have happy and meaningful relationships no matter what it is you do, just as I can avoid going on a murderous rampage.”

_There’s a lot to read into that statement, but I’ll brush it aside for now. If Mari wants to talk about it, she’ll be upfront about it._

“I think so, too.” I say, thinking about everyone I’ve left behind, and of the two girls I’ve sworn to bring back. 

Gently, she pulls me into a hug. “We’ll be okay, Yuki. We will. We’re going to get out of this, all of us. And we’re going to have lots of fun together when we go home.” 

“Since when have you been the one to comfort me?” I ask, smiling despite myself. 

She pulls back, grinning mischievously. “Stranger things have happened. Anyways, what’s on the agenda for today?”

“We need to find out more about that potential plague. I understand that three of the council members are coming today, besides, obviously, Alexandria.” I raise three fingers, ticking them down one at a time. “Aria Tsuzera, whose specialty I’m unfamiliar with. Gary, who seems to be generally knowledgeable on magic and rituals. And Catherine, the mind specialist. I need to consult with all three of them at some point.” 

“Sounds good.” Mari says agreeably. 

I frown as a decently powerful presence slipping into my senses, then walk over and open the door. 

_I thought I recognized that aura._

“Ah, Lady Tsuzera? Is that you?” I ask. “If you aren’t busy, I’ve been meaning to find you.” 

“As have I.” She says cheerfully, coming to a stop outside the room. “I’ve finished the prototype wall, and I’d like to see if you can break it.”

“Of course.” I agree. “Do you have a space larger than the arena for me to test it against? And somewhere suitably private? I’d prefer not to tip my hand early.” 

She nods. “My estate has quite the forest. It’ll be only a few minutes’ work to set up, and the damages can be attributed to simple spell practice. And it’ll give my daughter a chance to practice her repair magic.” 

“Perfect. I assume we’d get there via the Warp Matrix?”

“Yep.” She says agreeably. “Will your friend be accompanying you?”

“Yep.” Mari says, moving to stand next to me. 

“Excellent!” She claps her hands. “Then, if there is nothing else, please follow me.” 

…

Her estate, as it turns out, is obscenely massive. 

“Let’s just go through the window.” She says, smiling lightly. “Or we’ll have to take the long route. Can you two handle the drop?”

“Easily.” I confirm, glancing at the twenty meter drop. Across from the window is a vast forest, a forest that apparently belongs to her. And her mansion towers over all of that.

“Excellent. Do you see that clearing down there?” She points to a spot quite deep in the forest. “Please meet me there!” 

She reaches out, magic around her fingers, and taps the glass pane. It dissolves away, leaving her free to leap out with the help of a wind current.

“I do believe she’s trying to race us, Mari.” I say speculatively. “Give me a boost?”

“With pleasure, captain.”

Jumping up, she catches me on her linked hands, then _shoves_ as I kick off _—_

A few seconds later, I land in the clearing, dirt exploding out from around me. A quick burst of Wind clears it away. 

“You’re so slow, captain.” Mari grins from in front of me, sparks still skittering off her frame. 

“We can’t all move faster than the speed of sound.” I mutter, annoyed. 

“I didn’t break that speed.” She says, smiling slightly. “I would’ve broken things if I hit that hard.” 

I blink. “How’d you get here, then? And would that happen to be related to the lightning bolt I flew over?” 

She grins. “Might be.” 

“My, you two are quite quick.” Lady Tsuzera touches down gently next to us. “Here I was worried about the drop from the house to the forest floor…but you just threw yourself to easily two times that height.” 

I shrug. “I’ve been higher. Heights aren’t really scary when you’re capable of Wind manipulation. I see you’re plenty capable yourself.” 

“Oh, a bit.” She says agreeably. “I much prefer the written arts, though.”

“Runes?”

She smiles brightly, nodding. “Now, if you’d turn your attention to the clearing proper…”

“That is a fascinating material.” I glance at the small block of what initially seems to be white steel, but my senses tell me that it’s far more than what it seems. Specifically, it represents a void in my senses — I can’t tell what it is, or that anything is there at all. 

“So you’d like us to break it?” I ask curiously. 

“No, no!” She shakes her head. “I wanted to show you guys and let you analyze it before you try in a simulation. I’d have brought it to the base…but I can’t actually _move_ it.” She admits. 

_How strange…_

“…I kinda want to try kicking it.” Mari whispers to me. 

“I think you’d break your leg.” I retort. “Save it for the simulation. Lady Tsuzera, Is it safe for me to touch?”

“The real wall might not be, but this? Sure, go ahead.”

_I wonder why she really brought us here._

The thought bounces in my head as I step forward, reaching for the block. 

_After all, there is really no reason for us to have come. The simulation can adequately recreate the material if Catherine has seen it, so what—_

My fingers touch the white steel and everything goes dark.

…

When I wake up, I come to two quick realizations—

_Wherever I am…it isn’t in the physical world._

_And I feel completely and utterly powerless. Careless! That was stupid!_

Black emptiness fills my sight, with only two floating, comfortable-looking chairs nearby. 

“I should have suspected.” I murmur. “I knew something was strange. But I hadn’t expected to be betrayed by you. Foolish, in hindsight.”

“Oh, no, don’t misunderstand, Yuki. This isn’t betrayal. Please, sit.” 

Bemused, I do as she requests. Her body shimmers into visibility a moment later, lounging comfortably on the other chair. 

“I can hardly believe you simply wanted to speak to me. What do you want?” 

She giggles awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly. 

“Actually...that’s all I’ve got.” 

“You can’t be serious.” I stare at her. “You could have spoken to me at any time.”

“Not in complete privacy, I’m afraid.” She shakes her head. “And it would take too much time. The runestone I’ve just had you touch will give us both. But, anyways, after having seen the memories of your power in the simulations, I’m confident that you’ll be able to tear a hole through the Great Wall. You may not realize this, but you are actually approaching the upper levels of strength when compared to _most_ mages. Many of us focus on finesse, after all.” 

“So what exactly is this, then?” I ask, willing to accept her words at face value for now. 

“It’s my Mindscape.” She answers. “The runestone gives you a conduit directly into my mind. I’ve infused it with a bit of my life energy via ritual…and then a pretty complex array to yank you into my head. After that, my mind’s doing the rest.” 

_Her Mindscape?! No, before that—_

“You’re familiar with life energy?” 

“I am now.” She says. “Your rooms are being spied on, so your private conversations with Mari aren’t really private. And I’m the security specialist. I’ve heard every conversation you’ve had within the base.” 

_How stupid. I took so much for granted._

“I see. Why are you telling me this?”

“There’s a lot you and I need to talk about, but I do want to help you. It seems to me that you don’t really know who you’re fighting for, what _we’re_ fighting for. The Resistance. There’s a lot that hasn’t been explained to you, not out of maliciousness but simply because there isn’t enough time, and plenty has been overlooked. But I’ve been waiting and watching for a decent moment. So you and I, Yuki, we’ll have a nice long chat.” 

“You couldn’t have just had this talk with me with Mari there? Or warned me first?”

“Not without knowing how much you were willing to share with her.” She shakes her head. “And then the aforementioned restrictions of time still apply. This makes things much easier. I’m sorry for being heavy-handed with the methods, but…”

I shake my head. “I suppose I understand.” 

“Now, where do I begin…? Ah, we’ll start with the most obvious. You’re capable of manipulating your life energy to empower your magic, aren’t you? Magia, you called it?”

“Yes.” 

“Is that also the trump card you have?”

“I need a vow from you to keep everything you learn in this conversation secret as well as the general secret of life energy to the absolute best of your ability if you’d like me to answer truthfully, and a second vow that proves you have no intent to harm, kill, or disadvantage me in any way, nor will you do so in the future.” 

She nods. “If you take one in return. I would not mind being straightforward and honest myself.” 

Her instant willingness to swear a vow makes me feel a little bit better. I reach out, taking her hand. 

“I, Aria Leanna of the Tsuzera Family, swear to keep secret to the best of my ability the contents of the conversation we hold within this Mindscape, as well as its memory. I also swear that I have no intent to harm, kill, or otherwise disadvantage Yuki of Alune in any way, nor will I willingly or knowingly do so in the future. Lastly, I swear that I shall not reveal the secret of manipulation of life energy to anyone who is unfamiliar with it.” 

“And I, Yuki of Alune, swear to keep secret to the best of my ability the contents of the conversation we hold within this Mindscape, as well as its memory. I also swear that I have no intent to harm, kill, or otherwise disadvantage Aria Leanna of the Tsuzera family in any way so long as she feels the same, nor will I willingly or knowingly do so in the future.” 

Magic wraps around our wrists, and I feel the binding slip around me. 

_My Blood Vow typically prevents me from speaking of Etheria, since common knowledge of that would be disadvantageous to my master. Since she already knows about Etheria, though, my Blood Vow doesn’t prevent me from talking about it with her. How convenient._

“Magia is my trump card.” I say freely. “But the secret lies in how much life energy I have to bear. I received a substantial amount of it from—“

My Blood Vow pulses warningly, warmth burning around my throat. 

“Apologies. It appears I can’t be too specific.”

“Are you under an overriding vow of some kind?” She asks, surprised. 

“Would a Blood Vow count?”

“Yep.”

“Then yes. Anyways, I received a substantial amount of life energy, and as a result, I can cast Magia without fear…well, to an extent. But it’s what I plan on doing to destroy the wall, amongst other things, and that will probably cost a lot of that buffer.” 

“Huh.” She leans back on her chair. “Now that’s _interesting_.” 

“My turn. How do you know of the Mindscape?” I shake my head. “Silly question. How do you know how to _manifest_ one? As far as I’ve understood, that concept has been something only ninja are aware of.” 

She shrugs. “For someone as imaginative as me, it wasn’t hard at all. It took me less than ten hours to first establish it.”

“Ten…ten _hours!?_ It took me ten _months_!”

“I’m not surprised.” She says serenely. “The Mindscape is a technique far more suited to the Magi, after all. Ninja are all about practical results, so something like an imaginary world would be difficult.” 

Looking around, I shoot her a dry look. “It doesn’t seem that intricate.”

In response, she just smiles. “Oh, this is just the space above my city.” Snapping her fingers, color blossoms in incredible detail beneath us, easily equal to one of Catherine’s simulations. 

I stare, equally shocked and horrified. 

Below me lies a sprawling city of gleaming steel and mortar, gleaming orange lights and massive towers rising high into the skyline. Some of the great structures are recognizable — I can see what looks like a mimicry of the Tsuzera mansion, and on the other side of it lies the Dawn family mansion. One of the massive buildings near the center is clearly an image of the Center from the Sunset Academy of Magic. 

Surrounding the city is a massive wall — her representation of the Great Wall — where hundreds — _thousands_ — of guards patrol along its top, tiny dots of black against the imposing defensive structure. 

“I…see. You can truly visualize all of this…?” As I look up, I realize that we’re surrounded by thousands of tiny glowing lights, the stars of the space. 

“You haven’t even been inside.” She grins smugly. “But I think I’ve made my point. Us magi are simply more suited to accessing and manipulating the Mindscape…although I’ll admit that I’m rather partial to it, as well.” 

_This must be the secret behind the strange sense of power I get from her. Her control over her magic must be_ **_absolute._ ** _A ritual, perhaps...?_

“Perhaps it was originally an Arcacian technique.” I muse. “Or perhaps it’s known under a different name here. I’ve hypothesized that Leona’s Clairvoyance is directly related to the Mindscape, but based on her description of what she sees when she looks at mine, I don’t think it’s quite the same.” 

The redhead bites her lip. “Don’t tempt me with research when we’re supposed to be having an important conversation!”

“My apologies, Lady Tsuzera.” My lips twitch into a genuine smile.

“Call me Aria.” She requests simply. “With the secret we share, it is only right.”

“Understood.”

“Anyways, that should answer your question, right?” I nod in agreement. “Then…I suppose I should talk about the main thing, huh?”

“The purpose and history of the Resistance?”

“Yep. Now, let’s see, where to begin…?”

…

The Highborn. 

The Lowborn. 

Somewhere between them, the normal Magi. 

Intertwined with all three, fingers of the Resistance, a vast, sprawling organization of hundreds of thousands of people. Many of them are civilians who serve functions similar to the one John did for us — approaching those with sympathetic views, and bringing them into the fold. With about fifty thousand people within its hold, give or take, it grows at a surprisingly fast rate. 

Magicals are carefully vetted by small cells, then sworn to secrecy with an elaborate series of vows. It took some time to develop, but eventually they managed to develop quite the system. Far more people are taken in than taken out.

In response, the Highborn began using their own systems to vet their government and indeed anyone of real importance, so the Resistance has been unable to infiltrate the Highborn proper. It’s part of the reason Alexandria stays far on the outskirts, away from the Capital, as does Aria — one hides behind a bloodthirsty facade, and the other hides behind a pleasant housewife facade in public…though in reality, she’s anything but. 

That doesn’t mean the Resistance is completely separated from the Highborn. While the exact secrets aren’t known to Aria, information still flows fairly regularly.

And the reason they fight?

Aria neglected to answer, saying that _I’d see myself, if I hadn’t already._ And she left me these words to ponder—

_This world is poisoned._

“Oh, I remember. Mari sang you a song, a child’s lullaby, right?”

“Huh? Yeah, she did. Don’t know if I’d properly call it a child’s lullaby, but…”

“Well, did you know Arcacia has a different version?” 

I blink. “Truly? Of the same piece?”

“Well, of a sorts. The melodies are a little different, but the style and the subject are exactly the same. I’d say they’re certainly related, especially when you hear the title.”

“The title?”

“The Alunian version, or maybe it would be accurate to call it the Lunarian version, is called _Luna_. And the Arcacian version is called _Sol_.”

“That is a pretty strange coincidence.”

“I thought so, too. Would you like to hear it?”

“Certainly.” 

And so, in soft, beautiful tones, she sings—

_There was once a boy called Sol._

_He was a child with a gentle soul._

_And his little sister was Luna._

_This is the story of the boy who watched his family go._

_Sol’s dream was to see the starry sky._

_But without sunlight he would die._

_One day Luna told Sol,_

_‘I want to go outside and see the light…please?’_

_‘You can’t go outside, dear Luna._

_The sun is too bright for your fragile skin.’_

_‘But are you really happy with this_

_life that we both lead, closed off from_

_all the beauty of this world,_

_that we’ll never see?’_

_‘Sister, I’ve only kept your best interests in mind._

_But if this is your wish, we’ll go outside.’_

_And so the two went into the moonlit night._

“Those must be related.” I mutter. “The structure, the lyrics, the story…they’re all too similar. I wonder...”

“Hm?”

“I thought so. Even the verse construction is the same. And the length of the pieces…they line up perfectly. And then there are those lines that are virtually the same, but twisted…”

“You think they were based off of each other? Er…rather that one came from another?”

“Maybe.” I say vaguely. “Could you test something for me? I’d like you to sing _Sol_ , and I will sing _Luna_ , but remove the words. Just sing the melodies.”

“Interesting…alright.” 

…

I wince at my poor singing, but the melody, at least, is intact. Moreover, it confirmed a few thoughts I’d had. 

“I think these two used to be a single piece. The melodies intertwine, too…it isn’t simple harmonic lines or anything like that…although, I don’t know enough about music to be sure.” 

“But what about the lyrics?” Aria asks. 

“Maybe those were added.” I muse. “Based off the original song? Perhaps I’m putting too much thought into this. It doesn’t really matter, right?” I shake my head. “I’m more concerned about the fact that your version sounded _right_ to me. I’ve heard it before, I must have. But…from when?”

“The logical answer would be from your childhood.” The redhead replies cautiously. 

“Impossible.” I retort sharply. “I had no childhood.” 

For some reason, the words sadden the young woman.

“You must not have been comfortable in the Academy, then.”

I wince. “In some ways. But it was a pleasant experience overall, even with all the politics.”

She grins. “Tell me about some of your adventures? I’d love to hear about how my daughter is doing from a reliable source, as well.”

It doesn’t occur to me until much later that she had perhaps been trying to shift the conversation away from such a potentially heavy subject.

...

The Mindscape falls apart. 

“Any good, Yuki?” Mari asks from besides me. 

I blink, reorienting myself in the real world. Apparently, no time has passed since I’d touched the stone.

“Yes, we should have no problems. None at all.” 

…

“You seem a little off.” Mari whispers to me. “Everything okay?” 

I nod. “A lot to think about, that’s all.”

“Huh?”

I don’t elaborate, continuing to follow Aria to her Warp Matrix.

...

“So what was that all about?” Mari asks, back in the supposed safety of our own room. 

[Quiet.] I sign to her with my hands. [Our security has been compromised. And has been.] 

[They can hear us?]

[At the very least. Should be in the form of runes.] 

Through careful inspection, Mari eventually finds a spot on the wall that doesn’t feel quite right to her. I utilize my aberration to ice the spot over, revealing…

[Here it is.]

[I can break it.] 

[Yes.] 

A short burst of electricity shorts the runes out. Apparently one of the runes had made them harder to detect, as I can sense the magic where I couldn’t before. We go over the room, taking apart even the scarce furniture, and short out another rune array hidden underneath the bed— 

A knock rings out on our door. Expanding my senses, I recognize the magical signature. 

“Come in.” I call out, vanishing the Ice I’d used to seal the door. 

“What on earth are you two doing?” Leona asks, rubbing her head. “I can feel the chakra output through the door.” 

I pull her in and shut the door behind her, sealing it off again.

“Can you detect hidden runes?” I ask. “If you concentrate?”

“Um, probably. Want me to scan?”

“Please.”

Her wand slips into her hand from subspace. “ _Detect Magic!”_

A wave of translucent magic leaves the wand, rippling out and across the room. The walls glow a pale blue. 

“Those are the wards.” 

“It doesn’t seem there’s anything else.” Mari says. “I guess we got it all.” 

“Why are you worried about hidden runes?” Leona asks. She tilts her head. “Well, no, scratch that. Why did you have hidden runes here in the first place?”

“Our rooms were being spied on.” I answer. “Audio only, I think.”

Leona pales. “I’ll be right back!” 

Knowing what she’s thinking of, we follow her to her room, where she slams the door open and casts her spell. Immediately, a red spot flares up.

“Aaahhh!” She shrieks angrily, destroying it with a blast of fire. “I can’t believe this! I’ve…” She pales alarmingly, swaying slightly. “I’ve said a lot of things in this room that I didn’t want people to hear.” 

Mari and I glance at each other, my look slightly awkward, hers mischievous. I shake my head slightly. 

“I’m struggling to find sympathy for you when you could have checked with one spell.” I say dryly. 

She turns to me, face flaming. “You…ugh!” 

[Think you could give us some privacy?] I sign subtly to Mari. The brunette slips out of the room, quickly shutting the door behind her.

“Huh? Where’s she…? Wait, what’re you—“

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice what you were doing to yourself in the simulations?”

She flinches. 

“You were hypnotizing yourself, weren’t you?”

“…In a manner of speaking. It was to drown out my sense of remorse, so it wouldn’t interfere with the mission.” 

I shake my head. “I won’t criticize that. I’ve done the same thing to myself, in a manner of speaking. But please, be careful.”

She nods. “I will. Thank you…for understanding. For everything.”

I nod, then turn away. 

…

“So you need more information about the possibilities of Death Magic, hm?” 

“I need to know everything about the possible threat that Alune is facing.” I confirm. 

“Hm…” He paces alongside the wall of the empty room I’ve cornered him in. “The problem is…this type of magic is secret because it is _extremely_ dangerous. And you can’t swear a vow on this because you’d need to report it. So, you see…we are at a bit of an impasse.” 

“Preventing a tragedy is what I’m aiming for.” I say evenly. 

“Indeed. But that is also my concern.” He turns to stare at me. “You see, young ninja, the question is not whether or not I trust you.”

“It’s whether you trust my superiors.” I finish, cursing under my breath.

“Precisely. So you see why I can’t assist you in this matter. I shall not impede you, because frankly I do not wish to be your enemy. But I can’t help you.” 

For a moment, I seriously consider _interrogating_ the man.

_I’m sure he’s thought of that. And it isn’t worth it._

“I understand.” Without another word, I turn and exit the room.

“For what it is worth, boy, I am truly sorry.” 

I close the door. 

…

“I thought that you would seek me out.”

“Why is that?” I ask. Once again, I find myself in an empty room, this time facing Catherine. 

“You don’t know it yet, but, recently, your soul has been rather tumultuous.”

I still. “Clairvoyant?” 

“Indeed. I can hear your emotions, no matter how you try to hide them. And they are _screaming_ , child. What you have done to yourself would be a crime _,_ had you done it to someone else.” 

“As...interesting as that is, I’ve come to seek you out for a different reason entirely. Regarding the Mindscape—“

“I shall not answer my questions until your issue is resolved.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I do not think you shall be reliable until those problems are fixed.” She taps her head. “I can help you resolve your own issues with my magic, but you must be honest with yourself.” 

_“I’d memorized everything I could recall upon creation…so whatever it was, I’d forgotten it before creating my Mindscape.”_

_“I’m more concerned about the fact that your version sounded right to me. I’ve heard it before, I must have. But…from when?”_

_“Impossible. I had no childhood.”_

“Fine.” I say flatly. “What do I need to do?”

She reaches out a hand to me. “First, join me in my mindscape.”

…

“And now what?”

“Relax. You can not force this process to completion.”

I take a deep breath. Strangely enough, in the empty black space of her Mindscape, I feel claustrophobic. 

“What do you remember of your childhood?”

“Why do you ask?” I say cautiously.

“It is glaringly obvious that your current unrest stems from that period of time. The screams I hear are that of a child’s.” 

“I remember nothing specific at all.” I say truthfully. “I’ve destroyed those memories, back when I tore apart my soul.” 

“You did not.” She disagrees. “Ice can not destroy. Merely hide.”

…I can’t immediately refute that. 

“You must confront those memories if you wish to move on from them.” 

“I can not retrieve them myself.”

“I can.” She replies. “But only with your consent.” 

I grit my teeth. I don’t remember the memories she’s talking about, but I do know what I did with them. Upon creating my Mindscape, I immediately sectioned off certain memories and shoved them deep inside. Destroying my Mindscape with Hikaru allowed me to get rid of them entirely, or so I’d thought. 

I must have done that for a reason. What was the reason? I can only think of something particularly traumatic. 

“Not now. After this mission.”

_I can’t afford to be distracted by anything this close to a critical mission._

“As you say.” She curtsies, and the mindscape dissolves. 


	118. (4.5.2) Awakening, Part 2

#  **4.5.2 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Awakening, Part Two**

“How ironic that the encounter I expected to gain the least from was the only one that bore any fruit.” I mutter to myself, back in my room. 

“There, there.” Mari says brightly, patting me on the back and grinning as I glare at her. 

“Well, we’re moving out tomorrow.” I say quietly. “Alexandria spent most of today briefing me on what the Resistance has done so far, so I have a pretty good idea of how things are going to play out. This simultaneous attack strategy of ours should go pretty well, I think. The real worry is seeing how the Highborn responds to it.”

“Are you going to try and pierce the Great Wall?”

I shake my head. “Not now. I’ll have my hands full with the fort invasion. Maybe after, but I still need to analyze the best place to breach it. Eventually, I’ll do the trial simulation to see if I can break it given the rules that we know govern it now.” 

_Later, though. I’d prefer not to interact with the elder mind magus right now._

“Hm, okay. By the way…what are we doing after this?” She asks.

“I need to find more out about the potential plague threat.” I say seriously. “But I’m out of options at this point. Everyone at the base is either clueless or not willing to help.”

“Then you just need to find a contact outside of the base.” Mari nods decisively.

“Outside of the base?” I echo. “I don’t know anyone—“

I pause.

“...No.”

“You’ve thought of someone?” She asks.

“It’s a long shot.” I admit. “High risk, maybe reward.”

“Typical, then?” She asks, smiling slightly.

“For you, maybe.” I retort, turning away. “I’ll be back, probably.”

...

“You didn’t really explain why you wanted to come here. On a Sunday, at that.” Leona says conversationally.

“I didn’t want to be here, either.” I retort. “But I don’t have a choice. She’s my only chance...”

...

“...and she’s not in her office?!”

“It’s a Sunday.” Leona says slowly, as if she’s speaking to a child. “I’m not surprised. I could have told you this if you had let me in on your grand plan.”

I glance around the office, noting a variety of important looking implements. “Leona, you’re familiar with her office, so you’d know what all these things are, right?”

“Uh...sure. Why...?”

“I need you to point out the least valuable, most easily replaced things in here.”

“Um...there’s an empty Memory Container there and that there would be a Firestarter, but...” 

I grab the items she mentions and unceremoniously throw them out the window.

“Yuki?! What the fuck are you doing?!”

“It’s Aspen.” I remind her dryly. “And I’m getting her attention, obviously. Is that a bottle of vintage wine?”

“Imported from — wait, no—“

I aim it out the window too.

Magic ripples, then, with a crack of displaced air, Cynthia Kemikeru teleports directly in front of the window, catching the bottle.

“What the fuck’re you doing?!” She shouts, waving the bottle angrily. “You motherfuckers — hey, my booze!” She pops the cork out with a wandless, silent telekinesis spell, then chugs directly from the bottle. 

I idly note that she’s clothed in nothing more than a large, fluffy white bathrobe.

“Ah, that’s good stuff — wait, this is my vintage Alunian wine! What the fuck?!” 

“Sorry.” I say apologetically. “It was the best way I could think of to get into contact with you.”

She puts a hand on her hip. “And just why do you need to contact me? You aren’t a student here.”

“Principal-Instructor Kemikeru, what do you know of Death Magic?”

She stills, her lips drawing into a thin line as the wand seals the doors and windows, turning the room into a perfect box. 

“What purpose do you have for inquiring into _that?_ ” 

_I thought so. As the Principal of a prestigious academy of magic, I’d expect her to have at least passing knowledge of most types of magic. It was a gamble, but a relatively safe one. And even if she wasn’t familiar with it, she could point me to helpful resources._

“It threatens the lives of many, some of whom are particularly important to me.” I decide to be sincere and blunt. That’s rather more of a risk, but— 

“Hm.” She stares intensely at me. “Is this a request from Alexandria?”

“No. This is a request from me.” 

**Tell me what is going on.** Her voice rings out in my head. 

_Those I’ve sworn to protect are in danger._

**You will owe me a favor for this, ninja.**

_So long as it doesn’t put said people at risk, certainly._

She unseals the room abruptly, the window flying open. A moment later, a dozen books fly through the window before stacking themselves on her desk. She seals the room again a moment later. 

“Neat trick.” I remark.

Leona shakes her head. “It’s built into the magic of the office and the Library. All she has to do is will it.” 

“Stop explaining my magic tricks!” Principal Kemikeru demands, sounding mildly annoyed. “Anyways, these are what you’ll be looking for. Half of these regard the magic itself, three detail various rituals and how it could be utilized and channeled, one is a general book on ritual mechanics, and the last two are historical examinations of the Great Plague from an outsider and insider perspective.” 

“That’s very thorough.” I say, surprised. “Thank you.” 

**It is the least I can do, considering the favor I shall ask of you.**

“No problem. You can’t take these outside of the room, though, and I obviously can’t permit you to make copies of them for the same reason. These are from a restricted section of the library, and aren’t meant for anyone other than senior-level staff to see.”

“Won’t be a problem.” I sink into my Veil a little, and begin flipping through the first book, making sure to catch a glimpse of every page.

_What’s the favor?_

**One of my students intends on summoning a Fire Spirit soon. I do not personally believe they will successfully chain them, which means that it will attempt to kill them. I have tried — repeatedly — to dissuade them. They’ve refused…and annoyingly enough, it’s too well-known that they will be making the attempt for me to use subtler methods.**

My mind flicks through memories. 

_Familiar Spirits? I understand those as ‘incarnations of the elements’, but that’s something I’m only passingly familiar with, at best._

**That is essentially what they are, I suppose. They are highly dangerous and usually require many skilled magi to subdue.**

_And this student is allowed to attempt to summon and control it?_

**This society values freedom — even foolish freedom.**

_I see. That is foolish indeed._

“What are you doing?” Leona asks, leaning in curiously as I rapidly flick through pages. 

“Memorization via Mindscape. Consider it photographic memory.” 

“Neat.” 

**Perhaps. Anyways, the favor would be to help subdue it if and when the ritual spirals out of control.**

_Why call on me for this?_

**Because I know you’re strong. More importantly, your element is strongly opposed to it, which makes you a significant asset in a fight against a Fire Spirit. I believe you are strong enough to be of use…and, to be blunt, without your presence there, I think the child will die, even with me there.**

_Understood. When will we be doing this?_

**Most likely Wednesday.**

_Alright. In the meantime, I’ll need you to tell me everything you know regarding the situation and what I should expect._

**Fair enough.**

…

“Catch.”

Halfway through the ninth book, Principal Kemikeru throws a small trinket at me. 

I grab it without looking, continuing to flip pages. 

“What is this?”

“An enchanted bracelet. It will allow me to communicate with you over a long range.”

“Alright. I assume this is so you can tell me where and when?”

“When and where what?” Leona asks curiously. 

“I’ll explain later.” I assure her. 

…

“Done.” I say an hour later. “I’ll need to properly assimilate the knowledge later, but it’s all there.”

“That’s incredible.” My adopted sister murmurs enviously. “If I could do that, my homework would go by so easily…” 

I glance at her. “Ask your mother about Mindscapes later on. I suspect you, of all people, will have quite the affinity for it. Or ask the elder Lady Tsuzera.” 

“Why not you?”

A slightly bitter smile crosses my face. “I’ve recently been enlightened to the fact that magi have a far easier time with the technique. You should learn it from one. Anyways, I believe we’ve accomplished everything we’ve come out here to accomplish.” I stand and bow. “My thanks, Principal-Instructor.” 

“Of course.” She bows briefly to me in return. 

…

“You’re back. How’d it go?” Mari greets.

“Exceptionally well.” I admit. “We weren’t stopped by anyone. Bringing Leona with me proved to be a good call.” 

“I made you take me with you.”

“It was a good call.” I deflect. “Anyways…I need to meditate and start parsing through a few thousand pages worth’ of information. It’ll take me most of the rest of the day, so please try to avoid disturbing me where possible unless something comes up.” Normally doing that much information gathering would also leave me with a massive headache and possibly brain damage, but my Ice takes care of those problems neatly. 

“Anything you need us to do?” Mari asks. 

“No, I’ll be fine. Thanks.” 

“Okay.” She says cheerfully. “Be safe, captain. And don’t push yourself too hard. We’ll be leaving tomorrow, after all.” 

“I know.” I glance at Leona. “Are you going to be ready? You should spend the rest of this time preparing yourself.”

“Yes, sir.” She mock-salutes me, eliciting a small smile from me. 

“Then I’ll see everyone at dinner.”

_It also gives me the chance to practice a certain technique in private._

…

Assimilating all that information via meditation takes a lot of time, especially given how much I’d learned from my earlier conversation with Aria. On top of that, I’ve had to assimilate a formalcraft dictionary from Alexandria, which took a few hours all by itself. I’ve sorted everything in my Mindscape, but haven’t really properly begun analyzing it yet. That, I think, should be left until after the mission is a success. 

_I’ve been putting off a lot, haven’t I? There hasn’t been much of a choice, though._

I dull the splitting migraine I have to a mere annoyance, then step outside, making my way to where I can detect Mari and Leona together, alongside a handful of other presences. 

“We were just about to call for you.” Alexandria remarks as I step into the small room. “Good timing.” 

“I assume this is the final briefing?” I ask, glancing around the room. All of the strike team is here, alongside Alexandria.

“Correct. Intel hasn’t changed much, but you should still expect surprises. On the other hand, I’ve recently received word of a fairly large gathering of leaders late Tuesday evening, of which I will be a part of. Reinforcements will therefore be delayed, should they be alerted, as they shall be with us instead.”

“That’s good, right?” Leona asks.

“Maybe.” I shake my head. “It will put suspicion on everyone who knows about the meeting, when these coordinated attacks come out. It’s a blessing and a curse.”

“We’ll be fine on that front.” Alexandria says. “It isn’t known to the general public, but the list of those in the know are in the thousands.”

“That big?” I blink. “Well, that helps, then. Anything else?” 

“These.” Alexandria holds out six plain white masks. 

…

**Take care of my daughter.**

_I will._

_…_

My last preparation is in my room, my qi tracing paths through my body.

_Hikaru’s Etheria...most of it is stored in my mouth, but I’ve stored a decent amount in small glass vials in my palms. They should make for small but significant power spikes individually, but..._

_I’ll drink about a third of it now. This should make up for everything I’ve used recently...and then there’ll be enough for...perhaps two full restorations, if I were to expend all my power. It’s not as much as I’d like, but...I won’t hesitate to use it if it seems like I’ll need it. This Etheria is useless if I die with it._

…

We use a Warp Matrix to the Dawn Manor to get closer to the Fort, spend a few hours running past plains and farms with stealth spells activated, then enter the forest and begin approaching from behind. When we get close enough, we find the first obstacle. 

[There are guards on the wall.] Mari signals to me. 

_There’s a complication already, huh? Thankfully, we’d planned for this one._

Stopping a decent distance away from the wall, but well within cover, Leona and Flora begin weaving stealth spells for Mari and I. Once they’re complete, we start stealthily scaling the trees as they begin constructing a makeshift hideout below us. Our movements are efficient and methodical, worked out over a few dozen ‘extended’ simulations. 

“Check in, Blue.” I say softly, but clearly. 

“I’m here, White.” Mari breathes back, perched on the branch next to me. 

“Can you track the outside guards? I’ll be watching the inside guards.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

I shift on the branch to get a little more comfortable, and settle in for a few hours of watching and verifying.

…

Back on the ground, I wait patiently with Mari before Leona rises from illusory dirt, grabbing us by the hands and taking us into the ground with her. We have a simple room set up underground, simple careful wards designed to go unnoticed from a casual scan and using as little magic as possible.

“How are things going?” Leona asks, tossing a thick slice of flavored bread at me. She idly plucks at a piece of string she’s stretched between her fingers, weaving it into complex patterns.

“Well enough.” I reply simply. “The initial brief seems to have gotten the patrol times quite accurately.” 

“Going back up?”

“Yep.” After all, I’ve finished my dinner. 

“Better you than me.” 

“Thanks _._ Give me one for Blue?”

…

“No change.” Mari mutters, munching on her bread. 

“Alright. You want to get some sleep? We’ll be up here for a good while more.”

“Sure. Thanks, White. See ya in four hours.”

...

“Welcome back.” I greet, upon feeling Mari move closer. 

“Thanks.” She says brightly. “Your turn to sleep.”

I shake my head. “I’ll be meditating.” 

“If you need to talk, I’ll be up here.” She offers.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Blue.”

...

“Still awake, Yellow?” I murmur. The magus glances up from where she’s resting on the floor, then flicks her wand into her hand. A moment later, the familiar sensation of a privacy ward washes over us.

“Yeah.”

“Good.” It seems like it’s her shift for guard duty, the other trio of mages slumbering behind her.

“Will you be sleeping too?” 

“No. I will meditate instead.” I sit next to her, preparing to do just that.

“Okay.” She moves, settling against my side and sighing contentedly. 

A fond smile flickering across my face, I dive into my Mindscape and begin reading.

...

…

…

“…Ah.” My eyes snap open. 

“Hm?” Leona shifts away from me, alert. I’d briefly wondered if she’d actually fallen asleep, but it seems she had been taking her guard duty seriously. 

“…” 

“What? Is something wrong?” 

“…” 

“You’re scaring me…are you okay?” 

“…”

“Y-Yuki?”

“…It’s **too fucking** **late**.” 

“H-Huh?”

“We’re too late. They already have all the power they needed. It was only a guess before, but it turns out that he was correct. Did he know? Is that why he wouldn’t tell me? He—“

Leona hugs me tightly. 

“Calm down. Calm down. You’re losing control.” 

It’s then that I realize my breath is misting out in front of me, and that all the hair on my arms and legs is standing straight up. With some effort, I rein my emotions in.

“Sorry. Thanks. I’m okay now.”

“What’s going on?” She asks, concern in her voice. Thankfully, I haven’t woken up the others — Leona threw up some kind of ward to contain us. 

“I…we need to get home. Soon.” I grit my teeth. “They already have what they need for the ritual, I think. Gary…he’d speculated earlier that they already had all the souls they needed. He was right. There’s effectively nothing we can do to halt the ritual. They’ve gathered plenty of souls…”

I freeze. 

“…oh.” 

“What? What’s going on?” She repeats, looking frightfully pale at my revelation. 

_They’re not gathering_ souls _, they’re gathering life energy. Etheria. Whether or not they know the difference is immaterial. That’s what they’re doing. Oh, hell. Tainted life energy, at that. It’s going to be an incredibly toxic Magia, on a scale that hasn’t been done before. I thought Alune would be the only ones at risk, but they could feasibly threaten all of Lunaria with this. And they will. They’ll cast the goddamn thing, and kill innocents and combatants alike._

_I’m done playing around._

That cold feeling rears its head again, the part of me that revels in the thought of vengeance, and this time, I don’t hold it back. 

It’s too late to stop the ritual. The only way I could would be to actually find the ritual site, and that could be literally anywhere within Lunaria. The country’s big enough to where I probably wouldn’t even be able to travel to the spot in time, even if I knew exactly where it was. 

All I can do now…is deliver **retribution.**

There’s only one hope. A second ritual must be performed to actually unleash the rot — and that must be relatively close to the site. It would also kill the casters, but they could likely find people to do it for the cause. So if we manage to keep them far enough away, they won’t be able to hit Alune. At least, not directly. 

That’s the only hope that we have. 

“Nothing.” I lie blatantly, turning away so she doesn’t see my expression, sinking myself into the Veil, letting cold pragmatism burn through my veins—

And am interrupted by warm arms encircling me from behind. 

“You’re not alone, Yuki.” She whispers. “Please. Talk to me?” 

_Sorry, Leona. I can’t tell you about this._

“I was…just thinking about the future.” 

And even Leona’s warmth can’t heat up the icy intent that lurks underneath my skin. 


	119. (4.5.3) Awakening, Part 3

#  **4.5.3 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Awakening, Part Three**

Another day of observation passes by, and soon, it approaches midnight.

“Thirty minutes. Masks on, everyone.” 

Six white masks are secured, magically sealed to faces. 

“We move according to plan B. I’ve already briefed everyone on the expected and observed patrols. Keep them in mind, as stealth is of the utmost importance.”

The words are things that all of us gathered already know, but they serve to reaffirm our purpose and settle the mind.

“Yellow, Red, you’re with me as the Alpha team. Brown, Black, with Blue as the Beta team. Listen to our shotcalls, but speak up if you think we’re missing something, especially regarding magic-related subjects. If shit hits the fire, Beta team will move in and assist in a fighting retreat. Once we’re all clear, I’ll torch the place. Ideally, we take this place as whole as possible, but don’t hold back if it means you come out safely. Any questions?” 

There are none. 

“Then move out.” 

…

...

...

With the ease of practice, we slip out from the tree coverage during a gap in the patrols and press against the bottom of the wall. 

“Ward coverage is the same as expected.” Leona murmurs. “We have to get on the wall.” She shoots me a worried look, but I ignore it. Personal feelings have zero place in the mission. 

“Right. We’ll scale it and hide inside the stairway.” Slowly, I begin calling my Ice to me, materializing sharp wedges that I stab into the wall. It easily parts the stone, and I scale my way up, adding more as I go. The two girls follow, trusting in my abilities. 

Once at the top, we scramble inside, steps silenced with the barest minimum application of magic, and slip into the shadows of the stairwells.

“We need to be on the wall proper for this.” Leona mutters.

“Within mission parameters.” I reply softly. “Start doing the hypnotizations.”

The blonde magus nods, inching upwards. As the first guard makes his way around the corner, she breathes out an incantation, the guard barely stumbling as a clear bolt hits him. 

“One to go.” She murmurs. 

A few minutes later, the second one rounds the stairway, and he’s hit too, giving us the freedom to move onto the wall proper. We’re hidden from viewers in the fort via the parapets, but close enough for the two magi to get a taste for the wards. 

Leona can maintain exactly two hypnotizations while weaving the spell to enter the wards. Thankfully, spell improvisation gets easier with practice, and Leona’s had dozens of chances to weave this one. Even so, it’s barely within her ability when you factor in the drain on her magic from her proximity to midnight. 

She’s yet to fail, though, and I have faith in her. 

“Done.” She whispers. 

“Good work. We’re ready, then?”

Flora nods. 

“Down, then.”

We make our way down the stairway. Gesturing for them to stay back, I peek out as Leona releases her hypnotizations. 

“Cycles are normal. Nothing seems off. We have a thirty second window in ten seconds, but we’ll still need to dodge that second and third floor patrol. Ready?”

Two answering nods. 

“Go.” 

…

...

...

Infiltration goes surprisingly smoothly. I’m running contingency plans through my mind, expecting things to go wrong — but everything works out, and soon enough, we’re a room away from the target. It’s then that I recenter myself — that lull in focus, the bubbling of confidence, is the most dangerous period. Reminding myself that things can and will go wrong lets me keep that in check. 

“We’ll disable this next patrol and go in, just as planned. Ten seconds.” 

They nod. 

“Go—“ 

And that’s where things go wrong. I open the door, and although I’m able to grab onto one man, the other backs away, raises their wand and casts a spell that sends me flying backwards. 

Knowing that stealth has been lost, I allow myself to hit the wall, my hands slapping into it. 

**“Frozen Garden.”**

Ice explodes through the wall in a series of piercing spikes fueled with a spark of Life Energy, tearing apart the map-comm pair in the other room. A thought, and my Ice races through the walls and floors, tearing into people left and right— 

Flora incants, ripping the man to shreds through his shield. Leona drops her own barrier, snapping her head to look at me.

“We need to — the map-comm pair—“

“They’re dead.” I say tonelessly, showing her the Ice on my hands. “We’ve lost stealth, but the main objective has mostly been achieved. Casualties within the people in a twenty-meter radius are about 80%. Yellow—“ I concentrate on the feeling of my leash. “Yellow knows we’ve lost stealth, and their team is moving in to meet up with us. Stand by…I’m going to clear the way.”

With that, I slam both palms into the ground, increasing the rate and spread of my Ice, empowering it with a little of my Etheria. 

“…Casualties within the fort…75%.” 

Leona and Flora become aware of the fact that their breath is misting out in front of them.

“90%. I can’t get the rest from this far. They’re all mages…I count four. Two are positioned between the Beta team. Flora, take Leona and meet up with them. If you go high, you’ll be able to get past, but be careful to avoid becoming collateral. Ward yourself against electricity.” 

“Got it.” 

“What about you, White?” Leona asks sharply. 

“I’m going to combat the other two mages.” Luna materializes in my hands. “I’m an anti-mage asset. Go.”

She hesitates, but knows not to contest my order. 

“Be safe.” She follows Flora out of the room, the War Mage giving me a nod.

“…No promises.” I mutter, turning my attention to the presences I can sense a floor below me, two corridors away.

_Their presences…feel strong._

I don’t bother with stealth, running to the point above them as chakra runs through my body and as magic swirls around my fingertips. I’m sure they’re wary now, so I don’t hesitate. A wall of Ice splits them as I phase through the floor, falling through two stories and slashing through one man on the way down—

The other launches a wave of crushing force that shatters my Ice wall and sends me sliding back, reinforced bones creaking.

_C-ranked battle magic?! Done nearly instantly?! And wandlessly, at that!_

“You — who are you?!” A young man stands across from me, sword drawn and aimed at my chest. He has the most piercing blue eyes I’ve ever seen, black hair cut short. “Announce yourself if you have any honor!” 

In lieu of talking, I lunge, a crescent blade of energy flicking off my sword. His sword glows white, and he deflects it with ease before bringing his other hand to bear, another blade materializing. 

I grimace as we trade blows. Both of his swords are curved, so he favors a slashing style, but the unusual curvature makes it slightly strange to parry. 

_I’m used to fighting against straight swords virtually exclusively. Only non-Users fight with curved blades in Lunaria, and with my reinforcement and skill none make it past even the first exchange._ _And dual-wielding? Very few people can do that well. I’ve trained for a while and would consider myself reasonably competent, but I know I’m far more used to a style that involves one hand wielding a weapon while the other brings a technique to bear._

_And speaking of which—_

His other sword comes around, glowing red and forcing me to back off as a wave of fire erupts along the ground. I snuff it out with a flex of my will, Ice Magic suffusing the area. 

“Hmph. You aren’t some street urchin, that’s for certain. And your magic is quite potent. But—“ He stomps his foot, and the Ice around him dissolves. “I am hardly some nobody, either! I am Hiro of the Nitsuru family, apprentice to the Royal Guardian herself!” 

I still. His actions are excessively grandiose, but I don’t detect a lie, either.

_Killing him…could be a problem. But I don’t have much of a choice._

“Apprentice to the Royal Guardian?” I echo, then smile savagely, bringing my Etheria to bear. 

He steps back, eyes wide. “You are…no.” He shakes his head, even as wind swirls around him. “It matters not what you are. My only goal is to bring you down. Even my Clairvoyance shows me striking you down!” His magic peaks, pure and bright, as he raises his swords.

Luna fades away in my hands, and Moonlight is brought up. “You’re utterly naive.” I scoff, worried about the implications of his words. Guess I’ll go all out from the beginning, then. 

_“[Crushing Wind Storm]! ”_

_“Spellbreak!”_

Forewarned thanks to the language I’ve assimilated, I call upon my Etheria to create a transparent barrier. It was a good choice of spells from him — there’s no way to dodge something like that in this closed space. 

So…I don’t. The tearing wind crashes into my shield, and is unmade, not even the slightest of breezes passing through. 

“What…?” He asks, horrified. “How—?” 

I whirl Luna in front of me before snapping it directly at him, shaping the Etheria I’ve used into a spell. _“Magia Cross!”_

“Agh!” Hiro jumps backwards, but too slowly as a set of diagonal slashes spurt out blood on his chest, cut by invisible air blades.

_Now that I’ve seen it, Flora’s technique isn’t too hard to replicate with raw Etheria. It’s draining, but not hard at all to land on a target that conveniently stands still for you. And my version has even less warning than hers does. It’s in essence a Wind technique, but you’re compelling the air to cut instead of using the air to cut._

_That being said, that should have cut him into four. Why didn’t it do more?_

“That’s it! I’m not playing around anymore!” He brings his blades up, the weapons glowing with bright blue magic— 

_“Tempest Blade!”_

A tremendous blast of chakra erupts from my sword, the focused version of _Stormbreaker_ aiming to tear him into shreds. The winds rebound off the walls, but he shields it with an anti-Wind barrier. 

_What a nuisance. Try that again, would you?_

The best defense is an overwhelming offense, so I lash out with a more linear Wind attack, this time infusing a bit of Etheria into it. Hiro pushes the shield out, causing it to rupture forcefully. It delays the attack long enough for him to dodge the rest. 

I’m prevented from following up with the next escalation, namely a Magia spell that covers the entire corridor, when he lashes out with a wandless lightning bolt that I’m forced to deflect off a pinpoint Etheria shield. 

_I can’t afford to block with anything less. Not until I’m able to analyze the magic better. His attacks are coming too fast for me to tell exactly what they’ll do._

“You’re growing weaker!” He shouts. “I—“

He isn’t as foolish as he presents himself, and I feel his magic fluctuating in time to cast out my own magic, preventing him from tearing the air from my lungs. I hurl a fire storage seal after him, hoping to cook him alive as he draws the nearby wind to him, but he shreds it with an arc of energy before it can go off. 

A half-dozen small bolts fly out from him and ricochet off the walls, forcing me to dodge. One burns a line across my shoulder, tearing right through my reinforced clothing and drawing blood and disrupting my cast—

Another punches through my palm, sending Moonlight falling from my grasp. Flinching, I fall to one knee, calling on my Ice to dull the pain and heal my injuries. But he sends out a blast of focused energy a moment later, sending me to the ground with bruised bones as my hasty Magia shield blocks the hit, but not the force behind it.

“You’re pretty strong.” He steps forward, magic sparking around him. “But your fundamentals are poor, at best.”

_He’s exploiting Magical Field Theory to deprive me of my magic! Whenever he casts, there isn’t enough of a window for me to take advantage of the new ambient magic, and he draws it within himself. That’s a critical part of my Ice offense gone, and he’s my superior in Wind._

His magic seizes me and hurls me into the wall before I can react, half a dozen bones cracking underneath the strain. I fall, stunned, to the ground, slumping against the wall. 

_Telekinesis Sorcery, too…_

My mask is torn off of my face by his magic.

“Now, just what are you?” Hiro projects a blade and holds it at my throat. “Speak up, before I tire of this nonsense.” 

“What do you mean, _what_ am I?” I cough violently, blood spilling down my chin. 

_I need to stall and buy time for my regeneration to patch me up._

“You are no real magus, not with your poor grasp of fundamentals. Yet you have a competent understanding of battlefield tactics and combat. But it’s very, very strange. Ice and Wind?” He narrows his eyes. “And you infiltrated this fort, so stealth.” 

As he speaks, his magic binds my arms and legs together, and I feel paralysis set in. Apparently, he isn’t comfortable monologuing while I’m still an obvious threat.

“You must be a ninja!” He says excitedly. “An Ice Ninja? How strange. I thought you only had four elements.” He frowns. “So maybe a Water ninja?”

“And I assume you’re an Air Magus.” My eyes fall to his shirt, and specifically the badge that reveals him to be a third-sun rank. A _Magician_ , one who has mastered two elements or summoned a familiar spirit. 

_But which is it? Or is it both?_

His chest is still bleeding. It’s unlikely he’s competent in Water. Given that—

“A Wind and Fire Magus.” I correct myself.

His smile widens.

“Come, Avis!”

White mist erupts from his pores, coalescing into a silver falcon composed of wispy magic.

No. Not magic. Etheria, given shape. It’s a sort of soul, all on its own.

_...Shit._

**“You’ve called, Speaker? I hope it isn’t for anything boring.”** The bird speaks without opening its mouth, a strangely female, ethereal voice emanating from it.

“No, nothing like that.” He says hastily. “This boy is a ninja from Lunaria! And he’s...he’s killed people here. I need to know what else he’s done...” A dark look crosses his face. “Avis, please take him into the air and _play_ with him a bit. We’ll see if he’s more forthcoming with information after experiencing life at a thousand meters!”

 **“As you command.”** The bird bobs its head, then looks up and unleashes a tearing, focused blast of wind that exposes the fort to open air above us.

“Guess I’d better hunt down those other infiltrators...” He mutters.

I cleanse the magical paralysis a second too late, as the stupid bird telekinetically hurls me into the air with boneshaking force.

I black out.

…

...

...

I awaken with a start, realizing that I’m higher than I’ve ever been in my life, and still rising.

_That fucking spirit — it must have reinforced Hiro against my Magia techniques, too. Is that the power of the familiar binding?_

Through the howling winds forcing me ever higher, I manage to lock onto the bird, gather my Etheria, and clench my fist.

_Magia Cross!_

It barrel-rolls out of the way with almost insulting ease, but at least it is now only my momentum that launches me skyward and not hurricane-force winds. I grit my teeth, focusing on healing myself as I try to keep track of it.

It’s blisteringly fast, an incredibly small target, and highly maneuverable. Familiar spirits also employ Magia, so normal chakra and magic techniques will have little effect. Physical techniques are less than useless against a target like that. And there’s so much space for it to maneuver — and I’m in its domain. Couple this with the pitch black darkness of the night sky, and I’m seriously in trouble.

_Fuck._

What can I even hit it with? I’ve already tried tearing it apart with Magia Cross, easily my most accurate spell. But it can dodge it — it must be able to detect me building up my Etheria or perhaps it’s simply fast enough to react to it in the half-second of warning the technique provides. 

**“You are a special one, aren’t you?”** I wince as torrential winds slam into me from all directions. My Magia shields help, but only to protect my internal organs as my skin is torn apart through sheer crush force. 

_It feels like…I’m being crushed—_

**“I haven’t seen a pure human use the True Magics in…how many years has it been? Centuries, mayhaps? It will be a shame to kill you, Cold One.”**

“Y-You could…perhaps reconsider doing that.” I wince, trying to stave off the pressure, forcing my Life Energy out. I can feel my power draining from me, lost to the open air. 

**“Ordinarily I would.”** Avis says regretfully. **“However, I have been ordered to kill you, and so I must.”**

“No.” I choke out. “You were told to _play_ with me a little bit. He needs the information I have.” 

**“Oh.”** The crushing wind temporarily abates, leaving me to fall helplessly. Despite that, I can still hear her clearly. **“I forgot.”**

Growling under my breath, I call Moonlight into my hand — and it’s immediately knocked away, spinning into the air. A moment later, the winds press down on me once more, enough to hold me in place.

**“No, none of that. In my time dealing with humans, I’ve found you to have quite unpleasant tricks.”**

_Not good. I can’t access my excess Etheria without bringing it to my hand first._

My head pounds and my vision grows dark due to all the blood loss. It’s pouring out of the dozens of deep lacerations covering me, courtesy of her harsh treatment. 

“I will die without intervention.” I gasp out. A hammer of wind smacks into the back of my head, nearly sending me unconscious. 

**“Don’t lie, silly human. I know when your type is being dishonest. You can heal yourself, can’t you? Any decent user of the True Magics can—“**

_“Magia Cross!”_

Hatefully, I reach out to her and close my hand, pushing my will throughout my body. She squawks ungracefully, diving to dodge. 

**“Now, that’s hardly—** “ She cuts off, apparently genuinely flustered, as I repeat the gesture, two invisible cutting blades intersecting to the side of her as she flaps away. 

“Die! Die, _damnit_!” She rolls out of two more attempts, my vision darkening every time. “ _Magia Star!”_

This time, I’m rewarded with a genuine cry of pain as a few feathers flutter off of the magical construct, the trio of blades proving too much for her to handle. Bleeding magical ichor, a powerful pillar of wind slams into my stomach, and I’m violently, messily sick even as I’m launched upwards. 

**“Stupid human! I try to show you mercy and this is what you do to me!?”**

“…Somehow…” I grit my teeth, trying my best to keep talking, if only to stall, to _keep myself going_ , “I feel like I’m getting the worse end of the deal!” 

_I need an idea. I need…an idea…but it hurts so much…damn it…how…how do I deal with this pain…?_

I slip into the Veil, the agony slipping away and letting me think even as she continues hammering at me, my full energies dedicated to protecting and healing myself.

Energies that are depleting quickly.

_What do I do? How do I survive this? I need more Etheria but…if I unseal it, she’ll instantly knock it out of my hand. It’s in a glass vial…if it shatters, maybe I could absorb it through my skin? But…it’s just as likely to burn right through it instead, with how potent it is. I could use what I have in my mouth, but with how much I’m being battered around, I’ll certainly use far more than intended. No, I need just a tiny amount, enough to—_

A spark, the faintest spark of an idea hits me. A normal person would never have conceived of something like this. 

…I’m not a normal person.

Slipping out of the Veil, I brace myself against an impact to my back that fractures something in my spine, then reach out with numb fingers and clench. 

**“You stupid—!”** Avis dives again, letting the invisible blades slash above her, and that gives me enough time to bring my hand to my mouth, upon which I unseal the smallest vial of Etheria directly into my mouth— 

And bite down with reinforced teeth, shattering the vial. Glass lacerates my mouth, my tongue, and the inside of my throat, despite my reinforcement, but I force myself with supreme will, or perhaps simple bullheadedness, and swallow. 

Lights spark behind my eyes as energy burns through me, dissolving the glass and instantly healing my injuries in a rush of pure power that scorches my body and nerves—

Agony lances through my body, paralyzing me with white-hot pain, and I thrust all of it into the Veil. 

**“What is this? What is this!? What have you done?!”**

“I’ve killed you.” I snarl, raising my suddenly-glowing hand and facing it at her. **_“Magia Tracer!”_ **

She screeches in defiance, swooping down as four blades intersect at her position, but I simply shift my hand into a claw, slashing down to follow her. She spins acrobatically, trying to stay out of range, but she can’t move faster than I can track her, and with a slash of my hand, invisible blades tear through her body, scattering her ethereal ichor everywhere. 

I refuse to leave it to chance, though — Ice forms underneath my feet, letting me stand on my shaking legs as Moonlight finds its way into my hands, pointing at the falling body. 

**“** ** _Magia: First Light!_ ** **”**

The most intense of lights, briefly outshining the sun, explodes out of the Magia construct as a brilliant laser. It shines for merely a moment, but it’s all that’s necessary to eradicate every trace of the Familiar Spirit. Panting, I fall to one knee, keeping an eye and ear out to confirm that my task has been completed.

It has. The Familiar Spirit is gone. 

_And I’m supposed to help contain one of those tomorrow? That was_ **_hell!_**

Gasping, I manage to make myself stand. My body feels torn apart, inside and out — channeling that level of power wasn’t something I was ready for, but my regeneration let me put myself together again. Even so, I feel strangely disconnected from my body, strangely numb.

Thanks to the vial I…consumed…I’m running fine on Etheria, but my body can’t handle much more before I start ripping myself to pieces, literally. I can’t even properly slip out of the Veil — my nerves feel like they’re on fire if I try. 

_But they need me!_

I dissolve the Ice I’m standing on, letting myself fall, slipping through the Wind currents—

It takes me over a minute to touch upon the ground outside of the fort — I don’t bother with stealth, landing hard enough to shatter the earth underneath me — and as I do, Hiro’s body is sent flying through the wall and past me to tumble across the dirt. 

Mari — her mask gone as well — races after him, landing a crushing dropkick that he somehow manages to block with a quick shield, but he can’t even capitalize on her brief surprise before she abruptly slams into the ground and launches him into the air with a blistering kick. 

I can’t miss the opportunity — aiming at him from behind as he flips to aim at her down the length of his blade, I close my fingers, and blood bursts from his body before it drops to the ground with a wet smack. A second later, a bolt of lightning takes his head off, smearing more blood and bodily fluids across the floor. 

“Mission…success.” Mari pants. Apparently she hasn’t had the easiest fight, either. The rest of the crew quickly follow, apparently having seen or sensed the end to the combat. “Where were you, captain?” 

“A couple thousand meters in the air.” I mutter. “Fighting his Wind Familiar Spirit. Killed it.” 

“You—“ Flora gasps. “You killed a…Familiar Spirit of Air!? By yourself? In mid-air? And you’re uninjured now?!”

“Yes.” I frown. “Although I certainly wasn’t uninjured during the fight. That was the roughest experience I’ve had in…ever, I think.” 

“Lightbringer…that must have been what that flash of light was.” Leona mumbles, staring at me intensely. 

“Anyways…the base has been cleared, right?” I ask, reasserting control. 

“It has.” Mari agrees. “Primary…primary objective cleared, captain.” 

“Good.” I say. With that, Mari and I quickly make our way to the command room, the mages staying behind to put up their own wards and begin the arduous process of cleaning the base up. 

“Here it is.” I unseal a Warp Matrix from my waist, resting it onto the desk. Then, I unseal a small green wooden block from my wrist and crush it with brute force.

Ten seconds later, mages start teleporting to the Warp Matrix. A dozen friendly mages, bearing the wristband symbolizing allegiance with the Resistance. 

“Good work.” They bow shortly to me. “We’ll be taking over from here.”

I nod. “Blue, let’s return home.” 


	120. (4.5.4) Yuki's POV, Closing

#  **4.5.4 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Awakening, Closing (Yuki’s POV)**

“Captain.” 

I’m not surprised at the intruder in my room — I’d expected it, even, after I’d given my report to Alexandria. 

“Yes, Mari?”

“Why didn’t you call for me?” 

I don’t turn around, continuing to stare at the wall. 

_I could have called her with the leash, that is true. Now that I’m more aware of the energies around me, I can feel it distinctly, a bond between Mari and I. It’s almost like the bond I have with Hikaru, except this leash is a chain around Mari’s neck, not mine._

_With it, I could order her to do virtually anything, and she would be hard-pressed to refuse. How strange. I’d thought the leash was merely a philosophical thing, a mental construct, but...has the magic of Arcacia made this binding more real?_

_Has...my own magic...?_

“Yuki...” She says softly. “Please rely on me more. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” 

“I know.” I reply, finally turning to face her. “I know...and I feel the same way about you. That’s why I don’t call for you.”

A spark runs down her arm as she stares at me, clearly agitated. 

“Hear me out.” I interrupt her as she begins to open her mouth. “Make no mistake — Lunaria faces a terrifying threat. I realized, while we were staking out the fort, that Arcacia — that the Highborn already have everything they need for their ritual. And, worse, Mari? Worse is that they are using _tainted Etheria_ as their power source. Do you know what that means? It wouldn’t just be humans. It would be all the plants and animals, too, every living thing — a toxic, infectious miasma. And no qi or magic technique would be able to even meaningfully slow it.”

Mari stares at me, horrified. 

“You need to live.” I say quietly. “That way, should the worst happen, you can take everyone and run.” 

She grimaces. 

“Please, Mari.” 

Her eyes grow a little wet, but she nods, walking forth to pull me into a hug. 

I don’t resist.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're approaching the end game of this Act very, very rapidly.


	121. (4.6.1) Daybreak, Part 1

#  **4.6.1 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Daybreak, Part 1**

“Good morning.” Mari mumbles into my chest. I grimace, feeling a little stiff. Seems that my body is still slowly recovering from my Etheria usage. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, having a weakness that doesn’t disappear quickly. I’ve gotten all too used to my regenerative factor. 

“I see that you’re feeling the effects of the alcohol.” I say brightly. There had been a small celebration after everyone had returned. Mari might have gone a bit overboard, but I’d watched out for her. It had been fairly fun, all things considered. 

She whimpers, clutching her head. Taking sympathy on her, I rest both hands on her temples and numb the hangover she’s suffering from.

“Ugh...thank you...” She groans, rolling off of me and back onto the bed.

“Idiot.” I say fondly, ruffling her hair a little. “Control your intake, next time.”

“You drank more than me.” She accuses, although the words are muffled by the pillow in her face.

“And I’m a competent healer.” I retort. “I can burn it out of my system.”

“Unfair...” She mumbles. “I’m going...back to sleep...zzz...”

I can’t resist a small smile, patting her affectionately on the head. “Sleep well, Mari.”

...

“I thought you were a morning person?!” I laugh sadistically, one ankle held in my hands as I pull.

“Nooo! Go away!!!” Leona shrieks hysterically, hands gripping her bedpost. “I don’t wanna school!” 

“Too bad! I need you to get there, and you’ve already skipped two days! You’re lucky mage-knight practice was cancelled for the meeting yesterday! Now get your ass out of bed!” With a little application of Water, I make her hands too slippery to hang on, and she flies out from under the covers.

...

...

...

“I hate you.” She says grouchily, as we walk through the Administrative Office.

“You love me.” I reply teasingly.

“Hate.”

“Love.

“Hate.

“Keep it up and I’m giving you your headache back.”

“You’ve already given it back to me.” She complains good-naturedly, a smile tugging at her lips.

“Lady Dawn.” A voice says in front of us. “...Lord Dawn.” 

“Heir Ketami.” Leona nods in acknowledgement, and I echo her. 

And that’s it. He continues on his way.

“Hm.” 

“He’s been like that. Well, at least on Friday. It’s an improvement, as far as I’m concerned.” 

“I suppose so.” I agree. “Though he insulted you by not referring to you as the Heiress.” 

“…Mother has not officially declared me as such.” She says softly. “She won’t answer why.” 

From what I know of Alexandria, I’m not surprised. She knows her daughter wishes to leave, and won’t shackle her with that title. Not unless she decides to stay of her own volition. 

“Well, it seems as though I’m here.” 

“You are.” She steps forward to hug me briefly. “Have fun...doing whatever it is you’re doing.”

Only Mari has any idea of what I’m doing today, and although she was expressively against the idea, she also acknowledges that I’m strong enough to hold my own.

“Thank you. Good luck with classes.” 

She yawns in my direction, showing me just what she thinks of that. I smile slightly, letting myself into the office.

“Good morning.” The Principal-Instructor greets, flicking her wand to seal the room. You’re very early. I had not planned on calling for you for several hours.”

“I wished to guard Leona.” I say simply. “With the terrorist attacks recently...this Academy is a potential target. I have faith in Leona, but I would not want her to be on the defending side of a coordinated assault.”

“Indeed.” She says. “And where was dear Leona, the last two days?”

“Delivering her breakfast into the toilet.” I say, amused. “Silly girl thought she could handle her liquor on Sunday evening. She spent Monday morning in bed. Monday evening? Well, I’ll admit I didn’t think I could trick her into it, but she’s kind of stubborn when she wants to be.” I lower my voice. “I had to drug her food Tuesday night so she wouldn’t try again.” 

“I’m not surprised she’s so indifferent to a simple hangover.” The tall, black-haired magus says agreeably. “She’s quite used to pushing past pain.”

I snort. “That was not my experience the last few days.”

“But you take care of her anyways?”

“She is my sister.” 

She stares at me thoughtfully. “I do believe that is the first thing you’ve told me today that hasn’t been a lie.” I stiffen as she reclines in her chair. “The Resistance, huh? I’d thought so, but I wasn’t sure.”

Forcing myself to relax, I take a seat in the chair in front of her desk. “I believe I’ve gotten enough of a read on your character to know that I need not answer that.” 

She smiles genuinely. “How interesting. Of course, I must wonder why you think I will participate in committing high treason with you.”

“Because Leona will be executed if you do.” 

She frowns, then sighs exasperatedly. “That foolish girl.”

“She is, sometimes.” I agree. 

“What are your plans for this Academy?” 

“To assist you in containing or killing the Familiar Spirit.” I say promptly.

“That’s all?”

“I’m not aware of any Resistance plans involving this Academy, nor am I making any myself.” 

“Oh. Good.” She sits a little straighter. “So what’re you here so early for, then?”

“I was hoping I could access more of your Library.” I admit. “Specifically, regarding Familiar Spirits and rituals.”

She huffs, amused. 

“You enjoy your reading, don’t you?” The room unseals itself, and a few dozen more books fly through the window. “Knock yourself out. I’ll call on you in about eight hours.”

“What’ll you be doing?”

She stands. “Teaching, of course.”

…

...

...

“Here we are.” 

Everything has already been set up in the middle of the Fields, an intricate massive ritual circle drawn in magic and blood in the middle. A young magus stands near the center, already busy chanting. 

“I notice there aren’t many people nearby.” I glance around. There is only one spectator to the ritual besides the two of us. For containing a Familiar Spirit, especially one of Fire, I would have anticipated at least a dozen magi. 

“Minimal witnesses for you.” She whispers back. “If a fight breaks out, lead it away from the school.”

I nod, reasonably confident in my abilities to face off against a Familiar Spirit of Fire. With any other element I would be less certain, but...

“How close is he to finishing?” I ask, feeling the magical pressure in the air. 

“Two minutes.” 

“I would have preferred to see it from the beginning.” I mutter under my breath. 

“The ritual is quite personal.” She chastises me. “And any error would cause a summoning failure, where you wouldn’t be needed.” 

“Fair.” I bring my Ice to the surface, preparing for imminent battle. Moonlight materializes in my hands. 

“That is…an interesting weapon.” Principal-Instructor Kemikeru murmurs. 

“It has served me quite well.” I say neutrally. 

“One minute. Prepare yourself.” 

Flames burst into being around the man, lighting the ritual circle in intense firelight. From a dozen symmetrical points, fire begins to stream into the circle across from the caster, gathering in a bright ball.

 _“If you find me worthy, then answer my call!”_ He bellows. 

The fire erupts, flames washing over the boy, but he is not burned, holding his wand in front of him. 

**“You!”** What’s left is a moderately-sized flying bird composed entirely of flickering white flames with incredibly elaborate plumage, a long flaming tail trailing behind it. 

“A phoenix…?” Cynthia whispers, surprised.

**“You…aren’t repellant, I suppose. But…I will not allow myself to be bound to—“**

Silence. The echoing voice trails off, as the bird — the phoenix — turns, and faces me. 

_Uh oh._

**“You. Cold One.”**

“I am more than my Ice.” I reply politely, but firmly.

**“You dare stand in my presence? You, an abomination, an insult to everything I stand for?”**

“…I could sit if you want.”

It **screeches** , a declaration of war, using its True Magics to launch a blistering pillar of Fire with a flap of its wings. I push the Principal-Instructor out of the way with my free hand before stepping forward, Magia shields flaring into place to divert the flame around me.

Everyone stares, stunned. 

“I have killed one of your kind before, in single combat.” I intone. “I do not wish to do so again, but raise your magics against me again, and I will have no choice.” 

**“You think you can—!”** Flames burst into being around the phoenix, absolutely no prep time necessary, and it charges directly at me, a blazing comet of death that ignites the grasses underneath it. 

In response, I level Moonlight at it— 

_“First Light!”_

And the comet is rebuffed by a light purer than any other, the powerful laser crushing it into the walls and wards of the Academy, then _through_ it, snuffing out every flame in its wake. A horrid cracking sound heralds the shattering of the wards, then a massive explosion rocks the earth as the laser plows the Familiar Spirit into the ground. 

I follow in its wake, using a combination of magic and Wind to take me forth, over the still-smoking grasses of the Field, and through the shattered wall. Soon enough, I come across the form of the phoenix — to my dismay, it has survived the brutal attack I hit it head-on with, bright blue fire seeming to knit the hole together. 

But still, the creature is disoriented and unable to cast for a second, so I quickly pin it to the ground with a piercing vertical stab. I glare down at it, Ice humming at the surface, ready to cast should it resist. 

_Absolute Zero at point-blank range will kill it._

“Do you yield?” I ask softly.

 **“I…yield.”** The Fire Spirit murmurs. **“You…were right. You are more than your Ice.”**

“What shall you do now, then? You did not seem inclined to bind with the original recipient…so will you be returning to your own realm, wherever it is?”

**“Your weapon, what is it called?”**

“Moonlight.”

**“Hmph. Not any longer.”**

Without warning, the Familiar Spirit dissolves into orange motes of light, light that is quickly absorbed by my bladestaff—!

 **Fascinating.** A voice echoes inside my head — the voice of the Familiar Spirit!

_W-Wha—?!_

I’m cut off with the crack of teleportation — apparently, the Principal-Instructor has finally snapped out of her shock.

“Where is it?” She asks, eyes scanning the horizon as she grips her wand in hand.

“Defeated. I believe it has returned to wherever it belongs, but I am not sure.” I admit.

_None of that is technically a lie, either. For all I know, it really could have decided to bind to my blade...in which case, that is where it ‘belongs’._

“Well...” She sends her staff away to subspace, sighing heavily. “What a mess. ”

“Is everyone okay back there?” I ask. 

She stares incredulously at me. “Given that you single-handedly killed a Familiar Spirit in a single exchange? There wasn’t exactly time for anyone to get hurt. And what the hell was that spell you cast?!” 

“An anti-Familiar Spirit spell.” Also technically true. Moreover, it doesn’t have any similarity to the True Magics, so it won’t be too unbelievable. Rather than changing reality to do my will, I simply output a massive amount of energy, powered by my Etheria. “It seems to be a bit...anti-magic, as well, though I hadn’t anticipated how much damage it would do to everything else. My apologies.” 

“You used that spell to kill the other Familiar Spirit?”

“Correct.”

“What an incredible power. Just...try to aim it a little better next time.” She tries and fails to keep a straight face, cracking a small smile. 

I snort. “I will do my best.” 

“Anyways, well. Thank you. You’re dismissed. I’ll call Leona and tell her to meet you at the Warp Matrix?” 

“Great. Thanks.” 

Studying me for a moment longer, she turns away. I frown, then look down at the bladestaff in my hands. 

**I christen this weapon…Daylight.**

…

_No._

**Why not?**

_Out of curiosity, why are you even sticking with me?_

I’m forced to carry Daylight around in order to continue my commune with the spirit. On the bright side, my control over my element lets me shrink it to the size of a short wand. 

**You’re an interesting one. Also, I detect a trace on you, a trace of a proper Fire Wielder.**

_Leona, most likely. My sworn sister._

**Not by blood?**

_Thankfully not. She can do better than my family, and I think the Arcacian upbringing did her well, even if she would disagree._

**Interesting. I shall reserve judgment, then.**

_Just to be clear, though…although she isn’t my sister in blood, I still consider her family in all but reality. Should you hurt her, I will eradicate you from this world…then find a way to access the Spirit Realm and crush you there, too._

**I would not act against one of the proper Element.**

_Incidentally, what was your problem with me? I understand that I am an Ice User, but—_

**No. You are more than a mere User. You are a Cold One.**

_That is the third time I’ve been referred to by that title. What does it mean?_

**You have been touched by the Cold. Therefore, you are a Cold One.**

I frown, thinking to myself. Two of the beings that have called me that were Familiar Spirits. Aphelion is…no, wait, Leona also called Aphelion a Familiar Spirit. What type is he? He doesn’t seem to fall under any of the base elements, that’s for sure. Avis was Wind, and...

_Do you have a name?_

**Not one in your language.**

_Spark, then. If you like Leona as much as we both think you will, it will be quite fitting. Her moniker, after all, is the ‘Firelight Magus’._

**Fascinating. When can I meet her?**

_About that…_

“Good afternoon, Leona.” 

“Hi.” She waves, Selena and Robin trailing behind her. The former’s eyes light up upon seeing me.

“Aspen!” She runs up and briefly hugs me. 

“Good afternoon, Selena, Robin.” I greet warmly. She steps back, beaming, letting the orange-haired male and I exchange short bows. “I’m afraid I can’t linger, but it’s nice to see you two in good health and spirit.” 

“What _are_ you here for?” Robin asks, curious. 

“I’m to take Leona home. Speaking of which…” I turn to the blonde magus. “I have a gift for you, actually. Well, a possible gift. Well, it depends on how they feel. Spark?”

The Familiar Spirit answers in the most direct way possible — by exiting the shortened Daylight and manifesting as the white-fire Phoenix, eliciting gasps of shock and awe from the surrounding students. 

**“Good Day, Firelight Magus.”**

Leona stares at the Familiar Spirit, wide-eyed. “Good afternoon…Spark?” 

**“I have heard interesting things about you. And now that I have had the chance to evaluate you in person, I think adventuring with you shall be quite interesting. What say you, human?”**

“I…I would be honored.” 

**“Then draw your blade.”**

Leona does so, her mage-blade sliding out of her sheath, and Spark promptly dissolves into a multitude of glowing lights, sinking into the metal of her sword. 

A beat of silence. Everyone stares dumbly at the sight. 

“Best brother ever.” Leona whispers gleefully.

  
  



	122. (4.6.2) Daybreak, Part 2

#  **4.6.2 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Daybreak, Part 2**

“So we’ve got them on the back foot?”

“That seems to be accurate.” Alexandria says agreeably.

We’ve just finished a long conversation regarding history and warfare. Thanks to her, I now — finally — have a good idea of all the past actions the Resistance has taken — mostly mild harassment and recruitment — and the consequences of our little insurrection.

We actually now claim about one percent of the military assets of Arcacia — apparently one of the largest operations had been an invasion of an entire magical town. I doubt the holdings will last long, but it’s certainly something. Arcacia can’t ignore that level of military action. 

_Now’s a good time for what I had planned, actually. Before the Highborn begins properly reacting._

“Alexandria, if I wanted to breach a hole in the Great Wall, where would be the best place?”

“Somewhere close to the Lunarian border…” She trails off. “I can think of a few points. You’d have to decide whether or not to target a gate or a span. The gates are obviously more well guarded, but they have the benefit of being accessible and are also viable points to launch an invasion from. You could break a hole away from the gates, but they’re designed to be more challenging points to set up a foothold in and are more annoying to access. That choice has to be your first consideration.”

“Why stop there?” I ask seriously. “Why not destroy more of it? How wide is the gap between gates?”

“It varies…hmm, there’s a point not too far out from here where the two villages there both have gates — perhaps two thousand meters?” She hums thoughtfully. “Around there. Since they’re both major trade centers, it was apparently easier to just give them two gates. This would be a pretty good place to hit, especially given that it would put you in a prime spot to retreat to Alune after.” 

She doesn’t question my confidence in destroying the wall in the first place, nor my plan for escaping successfully. I’m confident now, confident in my Magia. No barriers will stand in my way. I’m being extremely negligent with my life-force here, but breaching the wall would actually be a meaningful objective. It serves as a symbol of strength and power for the Highborn, and destroying even a little bit of it shakes that faith. It’s worth it. I can bring Mari and Leona home after I’ve achieved that objective. 

A thought occurs to me. 

“Can I speak to Aphelion?”

“Certainly.” She removes the sheathed blade, handing it to me. Without hesitation, I put my hand to the hilt. 

**You have certainly been busy in the time since we last spoke.**

_I have. I have an inquiry for you, though. Several, actually._

**Yes, I can certainly do what you’re planning. And I am a Familiar Spirit in a sense, though not strictly aligned with the Four Elements. I was—**

Suddenly, facts and quotes rush through my head.

_Created. But not created ‘for magic’. Three thousand years old. Suffering no degradation at all. True Magics. I was made to wield energy in general. Magic and qi is the same._

Wait — no way. It can’t be that easy. But…

_Low life expectancies. High fatality rates. Life Energy is a significant component of the True Magic that our ancestors wielded._

You were close, Alexandria, but you didn’t go far enough. The Magia that I perform is not like the True Magic, it IS it — or, rather, is the key to it. Some of my Magia has the potential to bend the world the way those old methods did, but others do not. Perhaps the stories that were passed down were only of those more notable magics. 

_But they must have been monstrously efficient with their energies. If I used Magia for everything I’ve done, I’d be dead a dozen times over, already. I need to figure out how to do that, though I suspect I won’t find those answers anytime soon._

This means that Aphelion himself is a Magia creation. Power through qi, intent through magic, permanence through Etheria.

 _How did I miss all of this!? It was staring me right in the face all along! They’re all the same, just different facets!_

**Correct. Though, back in the day, it was just called ‘sorcery’, or some variant thereof. ‘Witchcraft’, at one point. The words have changed since then, but the intent remains.**

_And everyone could do that? Everyone was a…sorcerer?_

**Yes. Some had much more talent than others, and some chose not to pursue the path. But all have the potential, even now.**

_But they would do so by burning their life away…_

**Indeed. Society is perhaps better off now as a result, with a relatively minor fraction of the population being burnt up and sacrificed.**

I’m not sure how to react to that particular statement. He isn’t exactly wrong, I suppose, but that’s certainly an…uncomfortable way to refer to Aberrants. And what about qi and magic users? Non-aberrants, that is? They aren’t…or are they somehow using their Etheria, too…?

_Anyways, would you be willing to help me with the Great Wall?_

**Why?**

_Why should you do it? I mean, I understand that you don’t particularly get much out of it, but—_

**You misunderstand me. I will get quite a bit of entertainment out of tearing down that fragile construct. My question is why do** **_you_ ** **want to do so? Have you fully considered the consequences of such an action? Do you know the purpose of the wall in the first place?**

_What?_

**I do not care for such things as morality. But I’ve come to understand that you humans do. And as I was created to serve humanity, despite being a tool to extinguish it, it is my duty to ask you —** **_why?_ **

I consider his words. 

_I have three real motivations. The first, of course, is because doing so will help protect my friends, and increase everyone’s chance of getting out of this alive. That is something particularly important to me. Breaching the wall means I can take Mari and Leona home._

_My second reason is that it would help the Resistance. Though I do not truly understand what they fight for, I feel as though they are more_ just _than the Highborn. Helping them further their goals, especially since our goals are aligned, is not problematic._

**And the third?**

_I want revenge. I can admit to that. For the genocide they’ve already committed. For the plague they threaten to infect our people with. I can’t accept that leaving them to live and do worse things is the answer._

**And of the innocents your actions will hurt or kill?**

_I...in the end, I am the type of person who puts his precious people above all others. For me, knowing how selfish and hypocritical I’m being...I would still make that choice._

**Good. Now you properly understand what you’re fighting for.**

_I...huh?_

**You should be warned, however. I am far from omniscient. It’s possible that your idea shall kill you, or that it will fail. All I can do is say that I can do what you think I can.**

_I accept those risks._

**Then I shall be ready when you are. Bring me to my Wielder.**

I do as he commands.

“Huh.” She hums thoughtfully. “That is an incredibly dangerous strategy you’re planning.”

I guess Aphelion passed on what we’d talked about.

“Today, I challenged and subjugated a Familiar Spirit in broad daylight before gifting it to your daughter.” I say dryly. “And yesterday I infiltrated a fort, fought the Guardian’s Apprentice, then killed his Familiar Spirit in single combat in her element. I’m used to danger.”

She levels a flat glare at me.

“Then clear your other affairs here. I will make my own preparations for your departure.”

...

...

...

I lock myself in my room, then draw Moonlight — no, still Daylight, I think. I can detect Spark’s essence in the blade, though I don’t know what it could possibly be used for.

But I’m not here for that. I’ve put it off long enough, after all — before I continue forth, I need to understand just what this bladestaff _is._

**A polearm, if you wish to be precise. To our knowledge, though, there isn’t a more specific category that I fall under.**

I flinch back, surprised. 

**Be calm, User. You have nothing to be afraid of. I am of you, after all.**

_You’re saying that...I created you?_

**Naturally. Is this not your Ice? I am an imprint of your own consciousness, though rather limited. After all, I was created with a single purpose in mind. You needed a weapon, but neither of your previous weapons had fit what you had in mind. You needed something meant to channel magic, but just not any kind of magic. You wanted a weapon designed to bring upon magic that would kill your enemies.**

_And that was enough to create you?_

**Why are you so surprised? You’ve known that Etheria was the key to creating permanence. All I am is an imprint of your intent.**

_Then why aren’t you more...I don’t know, bloodthirsty?_

**Because I am of you.**

I nod. 

_Let us do great things together, then._

**We shall.**

...

...

...

”You are ready now?” Catherine asks serenely.

“No.” I say, bluntly. “But I can’t linger in this country much longer. It’s time to face the truth.”

“Quite. Very well, then. Take my hand.”

…

“You are still as tense as before.” 

“I am afraid.” I say honestly. Catherine will soon know things far more incriminating about me than a simple admission of fear, so I don’t hesitate to be truthful.

“We cannot proceed until you lower your guard.” She says. “I will not be able to get into your mind safely otherwise, and forcing it would be dangerous for you.” 

“How?” I ask, frustration swelling up within me. “I don’t know how to do this. My Aberration is worse than useless here. Ice will simply—“

“Make you more unapproachable, rather than less?”

“Yes.”

“Do you trust that girl, Mari, with your life?” 

“I do, why?”

“I can bring her in here, with your consent and hers’. But I’m afraid she’d…have to watch.”

“…Oh.”

I pace around the Mindscape, then stop when I realize what I’m doing. 

“Doesn’t matter, I guess. Yeah.”

…

“I’ve got you, captain.” She says softly into my ear. We’re sitting on the blank stone ground of Catherine’s mindscape, her hands wrapped around me from behind. Though the occasional spark passes between us, it’s long since something I’ve gotten used to — and is, in fact, comforting in its own way. 

“Thanks, Mari.” I lean back into her, feeling her slow nod against the back of my head. I blink as she presses a gentle kiss into the back of my head. 

“I will begin the Mind Dive now.” At Catherine’s words, I instinctively tense up, but Mari just hugs me a little tighter and hums a tuneless melody. 

The world fades out.

…

The first memory that comes to the surface…is a woman that I assume to be my mother. I make this assumption because she is holding my one-year old self in her arms and singing what seems to be a lullaby, what appears to be—

My heart stops as I listen to the words. 

_‘But are you really happy with this  
_ _life that we both lead, closed off from  
_ _all the beauty of this world,  
_ _that we’ll never see?’_

_‘Sister, I’ve only kept your best interests in mind.  
_ _But if this is your wish, we’ll go outside.’  
_ _And so the two went into the moonlit night._

  
  



	123. (4.6.3) Daybreak, Part 3

#  **4.6.3 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Daybreak, Part 3**

“Why?!” I ask angrily. “Why is she singing _Sol?!_ ” With a thought, I turn myself transparent and rush through the house I vaguely recognize, exiting out of the wall. My vision quickly grows hazy — looks like the reconstruction only goes so far — but I’m able to confirm that I’m in Alune, in one of the houses in the South. 

I rush back in. The woman — I can see the familial resemblance, in our eyes and hair and nose — and she is clearly my mother, so…what—

“…A spy.” Mari breathes, her own construct translucent in the memory. 

“Sara?” A man pokes his head in — his jaw, his face — my father. “I’ll be heading out soon. Take care of Yuki for me, okay?”

The woman pouts. “I will, Ishimaru! Be back soon, ‘kay?” She runs over and kisses him on the cheek before he walks out, leaving her alone with me. 

“He’s a good man.” She murmurs to me. “But still…just a ninja. You can’t raise a child in this environment. They’ll kill you, little one. Just because you have a little Ice in you.” She hums a line under her breath. “I’ll have to take you away to Arcacia. Your ability would be revered there, my child. And you could be raised without ever doing something as barbaric as being trained for war, so long as we keep you away from the Far North.”

I grit my teeth. The baby sleeps. 

“Don’t worry, my child. I’ll get you out of here.” 

…

It goes like this, a dozen memory fragments of this. Of talking about Arcacia. Of how horrid of a place Alune is. 

“Are you okay?” Mari whispers to me.

“I’m alright.” I say, turning away from my so-called mother. 

…

But things come to a prompt conclusion. I’m four, old enough to walk on my own power. My father, when he’s home, has already begun putting me through basic workouts in preparation for school. He doesn’t know of my aberration — or rather, whenever he finds out, my mother hypnotizes him into forgetting. 

The woman in question has been preparing to leave — we’ve watched her make preparations, detail a thought-out plan, and fill an entire book full of intel on Alune. 

“Looks like I got that part of me from her, too.” I remark mirthlessly. Mari wordlessly pats my arm.

But it’s at that time her luck comes to an end. Her husband, her husband who is hopelessly in love with her but is not loved in return, stumbles across the notes, and is curious enough to look through them. Her notes detail the way she has kept him under hypnosis, and detail her plans to take me away. We watch as he cries in disbelief before steeling himself, returning them to where he’s found them, and we watch as he picks me up, the child squirming, as my mother enters the room. 

“Dear, are you okay? You seem out of sorts.”

It’s a perfectly innocent question, as she’s yet to realize anything is wrong— 

“How?”

“H-Huh?”

He puts his son down into a nearby chair before facing my mother. The boy watches, knowing that something is wrong, but not knowing what. 

“How could you do this?” He shouts angrily. “How could you…? How could you plan to take our son away?!”

“…Oh, you found out.” She doesn’t look especially disappointed. “That’s okay. It was all part of the plan, anyways.”

“I won’t let you take Yuki away from here.” He says fiercely. “…Even if I have to fight you, Sara…if that’s even your real name.”

She smiles darkly. “You don’t have a choice. _[Bind]._ ”

He collapses to his knees, clutching at his throat. A red chain appears a moment later, strangling him slowly. 

“You should have never given me access to your blood.” She says cheerfully, stepping closer to him. “You can do all sorts of things to someone with their willingly given blood…like this. _[Suffocate].”_

He chokes, spasming on the floor. His movements slow, then stop forever. 

“Goodbye, Ishimaru.” 

She turns away, towards the boy—

And the dying man silently projects a thin blade of Wind before launching it into the back of her head. 

The child watches, not making a single sound as his mother falls to the ground.

…

“Well, this is a mess. Look, the kid’s still here.” 

“Hasn’t moved or said anything, though.”

“Can you blame him? His parents just killed each other in front of him.”

“What do we do with him, though?”

“Guess he’s a ward of the state now…”

“Academy, then?”

“Yeah. Worst thing happens is that he washes out, right?”

“Mm…but if that happens, he’s not our responsibility any more.” 

…

“You’re an Ice Aberrant, huh?” A man stares down at him. He stares back, defiant. 

“You gonna kill me?” 

What was he, five? Around there. A year after that incident. It was impossible to hide it at the physical exam. The simple fact of the matter is that he wasn’t trained. His father didn’t know his secret long enough to teach him how to hide it. His mother…had been planning on taking him away to make that point moot. 

As a Ward, whatever happens to him is at the whim of the higher-ups. He knew that, even at his age. He’d simply stopped caring. 

The man stares at him contemplatively. No, the word would be _analytical_. My younger self recognized this, but was not intimidated. 

“No, I think I’ll take this opportunity to run a little experiment.” He smiles coldly. “You’d best learn to hide your Ice, though, or you will die. That isn’t a question at all.”

“…Okay. What’ll I have to do?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Just live your life. Hide your aberration. I want you to go undetected.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Okay.” The boy exits the room without looking back. 

…

“Hi. Who’re you?”

The boy glances up. “Why does it matter?”

The young girl shrugs. “We’re sitting next to each other, aren’t we?”

“…Yuki.”

“Huh?”

“That’s my name.”

“No family name?” 

The boy scowls. “No.”

“I’m Sayaka. Sayaka Hoshiko.” She offers, apparently ignoring the ‘please leave me alone’ vibes the boy is emitting. 

“Okay.” 

She nods. “Okay.” 

The two sit there silently. 

“Do you like ramen?”

…

...

...

The memories fade away, leaving me to stare at a blank landscape once more. I remember now. I remember the memories I’ve lost. The memories I sealed away, not that long ago.

“Was that everything?”

“Yes.” Catherine answers.

And I am distinctly unimpressed with myself.

“How pathetic.”

“Yuki…?” Mari asks softly. 

“Was that really it? How shameful.” I clench my fists, standing up, slipping out of Mari’s grasp. “ _Why was I ever afraid of that?!”_ Luna slips into my hand, and I slam it into the stone, sending cracks spidering out. “Why?! Why?!”

“Yuki, stop!” She grabs me from behind, stopping me from hitting the ground. 

“No, Mari!” I push her away. Surprised, she slides back. “What the hell?! Why? What was I thinking?! Why…” I raise my hand to crash Luna into the ground, but find that I can’t force my arm to move, and that tears are dripping down my face. 

“…Why…can’t I shake this feeling of unease?”

“What’s wrong, Yuki?”

“…I don’t know.” Luna dissolves away. “I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.”

“Hysteria is a common complication post-Dive.” Catherine says simply. I tune her out.

“This won’t change how I feel about you.” Mari assures me. “And it won’t change the others’, either. I don’t know the others’ stories, Yuki, but, mine—“ She winces. “I’ve done far worse. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

Her words are kind, but off the mark. That’s my fault, though.

“I’m not.” I say curtly. “That’s what I thought at first, but no. Something else is strange here, something that unsettles me. This must be why I sealed all of that in the first place. Because I couldn’t figure it out back then, and it weighed on me. And my dreams.”

“Something about your parents?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I wish I did.” I frown. 

“Oh, Yuki.” She moves to hug me, and I let her, “You silly boy. Those little niggling fears and doubts are just part of being human.”

“That sucks.” I say blankly.

“Haven’t you ever worried if you were good enough for us?” 

I grimace. “They’re not really the same.”

She shrugs unapologetically. “I was thinking more along the lines of that it sucked but you had to deal with it anyways.”

“Oh. Thanks. I guess.” She perks up. “Wait, so does that mean you—“ and she cuts herself off.

“What?”

“I was...wondering why you reject your last name.”

“It’s his. She took his last name.” I say quietly. “And though she was many things, many uncomplimentary things, a traitor and a murderer among them, she would still have taken care of me to the best of her ability. She loved me. And he took her away from me. I can’t forgive any of them.” 

“Not now.” Mari murmurs. “That’s fine.”

I bite down on a scathing reply.

“Don’t hang on to this.” She whispers, pulling back entirely so that she can look at me in the eye.

I scowl. “That’s familiar advice.”

“I still mean it.”

She’d told me that — has it really been so long? — when I’d talked about torturing the civilian that had raped Setsuna with her. That I ought to let go of my hatred for her.

_When’s the last time I’d thought about that woman at all, actually?_

Aw, shit. I really did let it go.

_...probably because I had the chance to enact revenge first, though._

But...I’ll never be able to yell at my parents for what they both stole from me, because they’re dead, damn it!

How do I...find closure in this?

I scowl again, dumping those feelings behind the Veil. I’ve unsealed them, so I can visit them again later. Now? Now I’ve got a goddamned wall to crush.

That sounds plenty therapeutic right about now, actually.

Still, I have a question that lies unanswered.

The man that spared me...that told me to live my life undercover as an Ice Aberrant...I’d recognized him. 

_What was Daisuke Hirakaze doing there, that day...?_

  
  



	124. (4.6.4) Daybreak, Part 4

#  **4.6.4 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Daybreak, Part 4**

“Time to start saying your goodbyes.” I tell Leona without any fanfare. She’s just gotten back from classes — apparently, she’d stayed to play around with her friends again.

“Hwa?” She swallows the bread in her mouth. Above her, Spark dive-bombs the table, claiming a slice for himself and setting the tablecloth on fire. Leona puts it out carelessly, flicking her hand at the flames to snuff them out. “W-Wait, already? So soon?”

“Yep.” I reply simply. “The absolute latest we will be leaving by is tomorrow.” 

“I won’t be able to say goodbye to my friends.” She droops sadly. 

“Write to them. Alexandria can distribute them after, or someone else.”

“Like a fake suicide, huh...” She sighs, but her expression firms. “I understand. I’ll start writing those letters. You should write some of your own, too!” 

“Huh?” I blink. “That’s silly. There isn’t anyone I’m going to…miss…”

_That’s not true. And there are far more people I have to be thankful to._

She reaches up to pat my head. “You should start writing, too, Yuki.”

I sigh. “Fine.” 

…

“You’ll need this, Yuki.” Alexandria hands me a cloth package. Opening it up, I find— 

“A Warp Matrix?”

“It’ll take you to where you need to go for the Wall.” She confirms. “And…here.” She detaches Aphelion and its sheath, handing it to me.

I hesitate. “They can’t track it? It doesn’t have a signature of any kind that they could trace to you?”

She doesn’t answer. 

“…Wait, you…”

“You will be leaving after this, right? Immediately after you complete your mission, if I understand the situation correctly?” Alexandria asks curtly. “Then, it won’t affect you, will it?” 

“…It wouldn’t, but…” 

“That’s all that matters, then.” 

“What about you?” I ask. “You’ll be…” 

_If they can track the blade, then they’ll know she was involved. What does she plan on doing, in that scenario?_

She shrugs. “It’s what needs to be done. Don’t say anything to Leona about it.”

I wince. “She will not be pleased with me.” 

“She won’t be, _if_ she finds out.” She shakes her head. “Take it.” 

I grasp the magical blade, feeling its power humming in my blood. 

**Yes.**

Aphelion answers both of my barely-formed thoughts. 

_Thank you._

My Ice sinks deeply into the blade, coating it in a layer of frost. Then, the whole thing dissolves, motes of light slipping into my skin. 

“That’s…?” Alexandria stares. “Was that a storage technique?”

I nod. “I got the idea from you and Leona.” 

“Creative.” She shakes her head. “Well, that’s all.” 

I nod, then bow deeply. “Thank you, Alexandria. For…everything.” 

She bows in return. “Take care of my daughter, please.” 

“I will. With my life.” 

…

“Get ready to leave, Mari. I’m leaving for the Wall at midnight via Warp Matrix.”

She nods, leaving me to continue preparing. 

…

“Five to midnight. You ready, Mari?”

She stares at me, eyes wide. “You feel…really, really strong.” 

I’m not surprised she can pick up on it. I’ve consumed a third of the remaining amount of Etheria — and as a result, am fairly deep into the Veil to hold back the sharp pain of being overloaded with life. 

But over time, I can feel my body getting strangely used to it. I’ve stretched my limits with every cast of Magia, after all. 

Even so, this isn’t safe. I can feel it slowly draining away, even, as my body constantly regenerates to heal my insides slowly being shredded apart. 

“It’s temporary. Don’t worry about it.” 

She nods. “…You’re relying on that Veil of yours too, aren’t you?”

I glance at her. “You can tell?”

She nods. “You feel…cold. Too cold.” 

“Hm.” I don’t answer, focusing on my internal energies. 

“Don’t go too deep, okay?” She asks, a worried look on her face. “I’m not like Setsuna. I can’t bring you back.”

I snort. “Setsuna can’t bring me back either. _No one_ can. This isn’t a romance story.” I draw the Warp Matrix from my Ice. “I’ll be a threat to everyone around me if I lose control. So, Mari, should I go too far into it…kill me.” 

“No.” 

“Thank you — wait—“

“No.” She reaffirms. “I won’t.”

“Mari—“

“No.” 

“Tch.” I shake my head. “Twenty seconds.” 

“You idiot.” She glares, even as her hand comes to rest over the glass ball. “Don’t ever ask me something like that.” 

“You’re too sentimental.” I mutter. 

“You aren’t sentimental enough.” She counters. 

I shrug.

“Love you too, Mari.”

She flushes, uncharacteristically. 

“Don’t die.” 

With a red flash, the Warp Matrix takes us in its magic and sends us away.

…

...

...

“Holy…my head is spinning…” 

“Eight minutes, Mari. We have eight minutes. Then the Warp Matrix takes us back, if we’re touching it.” I slip the glass orb into a pocket, reinforcing it with a tiny bit of Etheria to ensure it won’t break.

She grimaces. “Alright. What…what’re we looking for?” 

“Look up.”

“Oh.”

Visible through the woods we’ve teleported into is a massive construction of stone brick, lined with crystal mirrors and high battlements. The Great Wall, spanning twenty meters high and eight meters thick. A massive magical symbol, separating the Highborn and the Lowborn. 

I’m here to destroy it. 

We’re a few hundred meters away, but I have no doubt that I’ll be sensed if I get much closer, especially with my excess Etheria acting like a beacon. 

“There’s not much point hiding.” I admit. “I need to get to the wall — physical contact — and force Aphelion through it. From there...we’ll see.” 

“So you need a big distraction.” She mutters, then brightens. “Right. Guess I’ll do that. I’ll arrive in...thirty seconds. Go draw their initial fire, and I’ll give them something to worry about.”

“Right. Godspeed, Mari.”

“You too.”

With our basic plan in mind, I kick off the ground and sprint for the wall, Ice gathering into the shape of a blade in my hand. The frost melts away, revealing Aphelion.

_You know the plan?_

**Yes.**

“An opening spell to distract them from Mari’s entrance...doesn’t have to be useful, just effective. Then...”

_“South Wind!”_

Ice billows out from me in the form of a dense, wide cloud of snowflakes, very rapidly spreading across the landscape. It draws the interest of the guards, who observe with much pointing and shouting and wand-waving. There’s so much snow, in fact, that I’m temporarily hidden from them, but that won’t last long.

With my vision unobstructed by my own snow, I can see the moment they detect me, a rainbow of spells being launched at me. Aphelion absorbs the ones that threaten me without a fuss. 

_Zero._

With a high-pitched shrieking sound, Mari lands as a bright blue meteor, lightning rippling around her. The impact makes the wards flow up, and I watch as a great section of the wall shimmers white.

“Adaptive wards, huh? Drawing energy to the point of impact...”

_Good. The odds of success just rose._

With Mari electrocuting the guards on the wall into submission, I race forward, Magia flowing into Aphelion as I stab him deep into the wall. The blade, reinforced with Etheria, pierces through it like butter.

**This wall...magic flows through it as if it were water.**

My lips rise in a smile.

_Perfect. Begin the loop, then._

I gather my power to me, utilizing a dizzying portion of Etheria all at once to fuel the technique.

**_Magia: Crystallization!_ **

Aphelion draws on the magic within the wall, using it to empower my own technique. As the magic in the wall is drained, my Ice spreads exponentially faster. Wards are ignored, drained of their magic and shredded by my Magia, as it continues spreading. With Aphelion there to serve as a conduit, the Magia is self-sufficient, and will keep going as long as it has been fueled. Though my Etheria will eventually run out, the magic in the wall — the magic that Aphelion is directly connected to — can serve as fuel, too. With that done, I leap up onto the wall proper. 

The Great Wall is uncontested, they said, but that’s simply because of two reasons. The first is that, with the exception of the Far North, it has had no real challengers.

And the second is that the top of the Walls is littered with Warp Matrixes. An ingenuous way to call for reinforcements, and with the length of the wall, hundreds of mages could come in at a time—

And indeed, a dozen Warp Matrixes flare up—

—Mari runs them through with a curved, bouncing bolt of lightning before they even fully finish their materialization. 

I reach down and thrust a spike of Ice into the ground, connecting to my growing Garden. My eyes widen — I’ve claimed a substantial amount of territory already. By the time our Warp Matrix takes us back, I project that I’ll have infected a fifth of the Great Wall, an absolutely massive amount of land. 

I withdraw from the connection, creating an Ice bow in one hand and drawing the string back. A moment later, an arrow shimmers into place, already notched. 

It’s been some time since I’ve utilized archery in combat, but the tools I have now to enhance it are rather more potent than I had before. Manipulating magic and qi allows me to utilize two elements at once, letting me fire enchanted projectiles that freeze the area I hit while moving at nearly supersonic speeds. 

Given this, it’s no surprise that my arrows shear through magical shields. Even at the low speed of about two arrows per three seconds, I’m able to overwhelm shields with simple piercing power and brute magical force. Between Mari and I, the top of the wall is entirely cleared, and— 

A _crushing_ magical presence makes itself known, and I react immediately, calling Magia to myself. It’s enough to stop the first attack, a devastating lance of Wind smashing me into the ground, which is in turn torn apart like tissue paper. 

Wincing, I stand up and jump away as my attacker lands nimbly from her leap. 

_Her_ leap — it’s a younger woman with striking crimson eyes and deep purple hair that falls to her shoulders. She’s dressed in a complicated, ornate outfit. A buttoned-up cobalt sleeveless blouse and a mini black, open jacket cover her top — both with golden trimming. A red bow is tied to her collar, sporting the golden symbol of the Crown. A black, frilled miniskirt and dark brown stockings lead down to a pair of white, metallic boots, and her arms sport violet arm-warmers and silver bracers. A single sword rests at her hip, looking to be purely functional with none of the ornamentation that is so common with the rest of her clothing. And pinned to her lapel is a badge that—

_Shit._

A badge that signifies her status as an Archmage, five suns. Her delicate features and high-quality clothing mark her as a Highborn, but that same outfit, although intricate, also gives her complete freedom of movement. 

_Whoever she is, she is a fighter. Although her clothing is clean, there are clear signs of wear on the bracers._

“Good evening.” I say courteously, as Mari lands next to me, clearly wary. “Well met. I don’t believe I’ve seen you before. Might I have the pleasure of your name?”

She snorts, then chuckles ruefully. “Why, certainly. Good evening, ninja.” She curtsies, a dangerous look in her eyes. “I am Carlyle Aurora Tsukiqirusa. You may know me as—“ 

“The Royal Guardian.” I finish, my blood going cold. Mari stiffens next to me. 

_Tsukiqirusa_. That translates roughly to “The Noble’s Shield”. It’s the surname of the family that produces the Royal Guardians. And given both the conditional evidence of her noble status and the presence she brings — a presence that dwarfs even Alexandria’s— 

_Oooh, shit._

I am certainly a skilled combatant right now, able to hold my own against most things — and that’s impressive in its own right, given that I’m still in the infancy of my career. But that’s only because I have the Etheria to throw around and the knowledge to use it. Without all of those tricks, I’m still very strong, but I’m not even on Leona’s level without Magia. 

This woman, I think, could crush me even if I went all out. And it’s that knowledge that tells me to stall.

_Her first spell…smashed through my Magia shield. The differential in power was just that high. It must have been a piercing type of spell…B-ranked, perhaps? B-rank spells are no joke. Leona’s Spiral Dragon Blade is a B-ranked spell. And this woman just casually threw one on her way down to me as a greeting._

“What, nothing to say?” She grins. “That’s fine. I have plenty of questions of my own. Like how you took that spell head-on and survived. I’m not too worried, though…I’ll just have to up the power, now that I know what I’m dealing with. But…now that I’m looking, I’m reminded of some reports that our scryers pulled up about the territory recently usurped by a few lost rats.” 

Carlyle’s blade disappears from her sheath, reappearing in her hand as she points towards us with it. “An Ice Ninja. A Storm Ninja. You two match the descriptions of some of those who apparently assaulted the Tsuzatera Communication Fort. The same place where one of my cute apprentices went missing. Well, I’m not so bothered about that. If he couldn’t handle the pressure, then I’ve no reason to be disappointed.” She tilts her head. “But now you two are here. You’re working with the Resistance, I assume...aha, I see. Overlapping goals, right?”

“Right.” I confirm. “Though if you don’t feel like trying too hard to kill us, there’s no need to go out of your way on our behalf.” 

She grins. “Oh, but I don’t like to hold back. And you two are the most interesting things I’ve seen in a while...well, ever since I went sightseeing in Lunaria all those months ago.”

_‘Things’?_

I narrow my eyes, filing that information away for later. “You left your King all alone in order to...have a little fun?” 

A flicker of annoyance crosses her face. “And now you sound like the stuffy old men back home.” She sighs, then starts walking forward, slowly closing the distance between us. 

It seems like playtime is over. I shuffle a little closer to Mari, pressing two fingers into her back briefly. 

“…Got it.” She murmurs.

_Two minutes. About one until Aphelion is done._

We just have to survive for two minutes. 

Carlyle grins. “Don’t blink.” 

Before I can react, Mari kicks me off the wall, activates her Storm Cloak, and draws her black spear, the two meeting in a tremendous clash. 

I hear it first, a low humming sound, as the Archmage brings her blade down in a two-handed overhead strike. Mari blocks— 

The Great Wall splits between them, all the way to the ground— 

The qi around Mari’s arms flickers out— 

The brunette backflips, qi rising, and when she lands, her Storm Cloak is thrice as intense as before, a veritable beacon of light in the midnight air. I land on the ground a moment later, quickly moving towards Aphelion. It takes me a few seconds to reach him, and I don’t hesitate to grab the blade.

_Thirty seconds, right?!_

**Yes.**

I begin pouring my magic into the blade, shaping a spell in my head and doing my best to track the fight above me, low humming sounds and crackles of electricity ringing out into the night sky. It’s the longest thirty seconds of my life.

**Done.**

_Thank the Gods! Here we go, Aphelion!_

With a roar, I dump a full quarter of my remaining Etheria into the blade. 

**_“Magia: Sublimation!”_ **

The Ice fades away. All of it. All of the Ice I’ve poured into the wall, the Ice that spread under Aphelion’s direction, absorbing the magic and releasing it back into the spell— 

The Great Wall crumbles for as far as the eye can see, a gaping gap in the once-impenetrable defense. Grabbing Aphelion, I jump back as it all comes crashing down. Moments later, Mari’s hurled away from it, tumbling back as the Archmage lands between us, a shocked look on her face. 

“…You…you…”

“Oops.” I say, shrugging. “How clumsy of me.” 

“You’ve got to die.” She says, still clearly in disbelief. “I don’t know how you did that…but you’re _way_ too dangerous.” She raises her free hand, revealing that she’s holding half of Mari’s spear. It fades away a moment later.

_She…she broke Mari’s spear? That was spellforged by Katsuo! That—_

“You are monstrously strong.” I say, trying to buy more time. “I have never seen anyone take my teammate in a straight strength contest, and I certainly wouldn’t have expected it from a magus.”

As I speak, I reinforce my body, utilizing both typical external reinforcement as well as the internal reinforcement Setsuna devised, back when we were up against magical sniper rifles — then with Magia, building off of my innate internal shielding. 

“They don’t call me the Strongest Steel for nothing.” The woman grins, animosity apparently forgotten in the heat of battle. “I think magi overcomplicate things too much with fancy magic tricks. It’s much more fun to crush your opponents — just like _this!”_

I have just enough time to reinforce Aphelion with Etheria before she charges, a brutal slash rattling my guard. I deflect the hit, then barely manage to knock aside the second, but I’m too slow, even with my super-reinforced speeds, to completely dodge the third, and it cuts into my left arm, glancing off my internal shields. A moment later, her foot crashes into my chest, nearly splintering my ribs as I’m sent flying backwards, barely managing to keep my balance as I dig my blade into the ground. 

_Three strikes in under a second, then a kick so brutally powerful that it could fracture my bones despite the insane amount of reinforcement I’m under. I’m using Etheria, and she still managed to do that to me with one kick! She must have powered it with magic, somehow, but still..._

As fast as it begins, it’s over, the Guardian backing away with a frown on her face. 

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone tank a hit from me before, not in the last decade or so...I knew you were durable, but that’s something else.”

“…Your sword is nearly double the length of your sheath.” I reply, frowning. 

She smiles playfully. “That it is. If only I could find a man that possessed the same qualities.”

“Huh?” 

She lashes out again, and it’s all I can do to survive. I can’t even take my second hand off my blade — her strikes have so much power that I’m forced to go all-out just to try deflecting them. Blocking them completely is out of the question — she’d disarm me with ease if I tried. 

Her last hit crashes into the ground, splitting the earth for several dozen meters. 

Sensing Mari’s qi spike, I quickly dematerialize Aphelion, bring out Luna, empower it with Magia, and throw it to the side of me. She rockets past me, easily catching the blade, then engages the Archmage.

_Has Mari always been so…fast?!_

I can’t even keep track of her — she’s nothing more than an electric-blue blur. Red and blue clash against each other, the ground being torn apart in their wake as Carlyle quits playing around and gets serious— 

“Switch!” 

Mari reappears ten meters to the side of me as I draw out Sol and thrust it forth, leaving the woman temporarily confused— 

_“Magia: First Light!”_

“ _Hi-ya_!”

The Guardian brings her red blade down, and — unbelievably — splits the short-lived laser into two. Her hair waves in the wind as twin furrows shred through the ground behind her for hundreds of meters. 

“You…you stopped that?” I ask, numbly. “With your sword?”

She grins. “Oh? Was that supposed to hit me? I’m afraid you’ll need to try a little harder than that.” A moment later, she lunges forward, engaging Mari in close combat once more.

_No! There’s about ten more seconds before this Warp Matrix triggers! But when they’re that close…!_

I grab the ball in my pocket.

_Five seconds. If I don’t get Mari to touch this, she dies! She can’t get home by herself!_

I quickly weigh my options in my head, but come up blank. 

_Three seconds. Mari’s not going to be able to get to me, and that woman is in the way—_

_No choice!_

I infuse the Warp Matrix with a tiny shard of Etheria, then— 

“Take this!” I shout, winding up before hurling the ball in my hand at the two of them. The Archmage, too focused on holding off Mari to properly deflect it, does the next best thing and dodges, flinching— 

Mari grabs it in her hand, eyes wide, and then disappears the next moment, leaving me alone with the Royal Guardian. 

“…Huh. Damn. Would’ve been funny if I’d grabbed that after all.”

“You chose not to grab that?” I ask, stalling. My Etheria rushes through my veins as I prepare myself for another Magia technique. 

“Of course. Wasn’t sure if it was a trap or not, so I just went with my gut and dodged. Sensed something off about it. But you saved your friend, instead.” She frowns. “Now you’re going to die.” 

“Probably.” I admit, gathering together my intent, visualizing. “I haven’t learned anything like teleportation, sadly.” 

“Well, in that case—“ 

“But, you know, I can brute-force it with sheer power.” 

**_Magia: Teleportation!_ **

The last thing I see is her outraged face before everything fades to black.

  
  



	125. (4.6.5) Daybreak, Part 5

#  **4.6.5 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Daybreak, Part 5**

I reappear in the Warp Matrix room, collapse to my knees, and promptly empty my stomach onto the stone floor. My head is pounding and spinning, my mouth is inexplicably as dry as sandpaper, and for a moment I can’t feel anything but a piercing, numb cold. 

Then reason and senses restore themselves as I utilize my Veil, plunging myself into the Ice for a moment, and I— 

“Yuki!” 

Where the — my left arm is _gone?_ I freeze the wound over, stopping my blood from splattering everywhere. 

I wince, looking down at the rest of myself. I hadn’t gotten out nearly as uninjured as I’d thought — she’d lunged at me as I’d warped out, and as a result my chest has a stab wound two centimeters deep. It resists healing, but a little Etheria seals it back up. But there’s the issue of my arm. Frowning, I push more of my Etheria into it, jumpstarting the healing process, then flinch as my body spasms, pain crackling down every nerve. 

Warm arms circle me a moment later. I stiffen, but it’s just Mari, helping me up. Unsteadily, I let her pull me to my feet, my knees almost buckling. 

“Your arm...” She whispers, her grip on me tightening. 

“It’ll grow back.” I reply. “Don’t worry. I’m...I’m alright. Gods, I’ve never felt so hopelessly outmatched in my entire life.”

“If you say so...” She sighs. “At least we’re alive.”

“We are. That we are.” 

The door opens behind us, revealing Alexandria as we spin to face her. 

“Good, you two made it.” Her eyes flicker to my missing arm, widening in surprise. As she watches, a shard of Ice juts out of the stump, then melts into flesh. 

“I’ll be back to full power fairly soon.” I say, shrugging.

“I...see. Report?”

I grin. ”There is now a gaping hole in the Great Wall. I wasn’t able to confirm just how large it was, but it was as far as my reinforced eyes can see. It should be at least a few hundred kilometers, though.” 

She stills. “Truly? I know you had the plan, but...it worked?”

“Indeed.”

“Lightbringer...” She mutters. “I...I see. Okay. We’ll be sure to take advantage.” She bows deeply. “Thank you for your service, Yuki, Mari. If I could ask you to delay your departure by twenty minutes? The preparation for the final Ritual of Succession is nearly complete.”

I nod. “That’s fine.”

“Then, if you could accompany us? It’s critical that you two watch this. The reasons as to why will become clear shortly.”

“Understood.” 

…

A few minutes later, Mari and I enter the Ritual Room. I quickly walk over to Leona and raise my stump. 

“Hey, high-five.” 

“Uh, okay — agh! What the fuck?!” Leona recoils, disgusted. 

“It’ll finish growing back soon.” I say quickly, before she starts worrying. “More importantly, the mission was a success.”

“More importantly—?” 

“Anyways...” I hide my lost arm behind my back. The way she’s staring at it has become concerning. “What memory are you sacrificing today?”

The question sobers her up quickly. “I don’t know.” She says glumly. “She hasn’t told me. I’ll find out during the ritual, I guess. It’s just…scary.”

“Because you can’t stop the ritual once it starts?” I’ve learned enough about rituals to know that much, now. The ramifications of a disrupted ritual are typically fatal for all involved parties. 

She nods. “…Yeah.” Hugging herself, she shivers. 

“Hey.” I briefly embrace her. “I’ll be here to care for you, no matter what.” 

“…Thanks.” I sense it’s not quite what she was looking for — I suspect that she’d prefer to not be here at all — but she manages to paste a weak smile on her face. Squeezing me one last time, she moves and takes her place in the ritual circle. 

“You will be leaving soon, won’t you?” Alexandria asks conversationally, moving into the other circle. 

Leona freezes. 

“I am many things, Leona. An accomplished Archmage. The Synergetic Spellweaver. The Firestorm, Mage-Knight Captain of the Thirty-Second Regiment. Many responsibilities, responsibilities that take away at my time. But my responsibility to you, daughter, is the one that is most important to me. I may not understand, but I am not _unaware_.” 

“…Oh.” 

“You are my greatest achievement, Leona.” She says warmly. “Everything I have ever done, every happiness I have ever received — all of it pales in comparison to you. I can only wish I had more time…but I know that you shall make me proud, daughter. I know that you shall continue to uphold the standards of true nobility, of honor, of sacrifice, just as I know that you shall always carry around that little spark of mischief within you. You, Leona, are my future. And it’s to you that I entrust my hopes and dreams. It isn’t my place to ask this of you, but I shall humbly beg you anyways: Save Arcacia, Leona. Save it from what it is becoming underneath the Highborn. Magic is meant to support those without, not oppress them — but that’s something most have forgotten over time. I think that you can change this country…but not while you’re being held back here. I believe in you, Leona.” 

“I…mother…” Leona doesn’t seem to know how to respond to such an unexpected, unreserved display of affection from someone so cold.

…But I can’t feel that warmth. Not when I know with a sudden, chilling certainty exactly what Alexandria’s about to do.

I could stop it. It wouldn’t take but a few carefully chosen words to sabotage Alexandria’s plan... 

But this isn’t my choice to make. Her eyes meet mine, seeing the understanding in them. My head tilts forward, just a fraction of a millimeter, and she looks away, my acceptance given. 

_I’m so sorry, Leona. But this is_ **_my_ ** _repayment to Alexandria._

“Then, let us begin.” 

…

The First Offering is made. The knife is handed off. Leona stares at the blade, hesitates, but makes the Response Offering, beginning the ritual. There is no going back anymore. Her fate is sealed, as is that of her mother’s. 

The two join hands. 

“ **Lightbringer.** ”

“ **Binder**.” 

“We humbly request your presence.” 

“In your name, we sacrifice a memory.”

“In your name, we plead for your guidance.” 

“Loghtbringer, I humbly offer to you the familial bond.”

Leona blinks, surprised at the variant, but it’s too late to stop it— 

“ _Every_ memory, every feeling, every thought and every prayer.”

Her eyes go wide in horrified realization, but she can’t interrupt — doing so would likely kill them both. 

“Every moment, every word, every laugh and every tear shared. We sacrifice all this to you, Lightbringer. Please, accept our offering.” Alexandria intones. 

The runes glow blue, magic gathering around their bound hands and traveling to their heads.

“The sacrifice has been accepted.” Alexandria murmurs, as tears start falling from their eyes. “Now, Lightbringer, I offer a trade. I, Alexandria Louise of the Dawn Family, would offer as much magical power as our bond would allow.”

“…And I…I, Leona Grace of the Dawn Family…would…humbly request to accept it.”

Magic roars out from the Spellweaver, forcing me to my knees. It’s her full, unrestrained power, filling the room with a density that makes my head spin. Mari withstands it unflinchingly, and it’s through her strength that I manage to gather my wits once more.

“Lightbringer, if you accept our trade, then we humbly beg you, answer!” 

The walls of the room blow out, only the support pillars and rampaging magic holding up the ceiling. Mari and I slide back, gritting our teeth as our feet dig into the floor— 

They scream, their agonized cries filling my ears, but Leona’s doesn’t last long before she falls unconscious, collapsing to the ground. Alexandria doesn’t fare much better, falling to her knees. Mari runs to check on Leona, leaving me with the elder magus. 

“Y-Yuki…bring me…Aphelion.” 

Hastily, I make my way over, presenting her with the blade. She takes hold of it as I feel her reach out for the ambient magic, still heavy with power. She grasps it, then pulls it into Aphelion.

“Guh…hah…done.” She pushes the sword back into my hands before shakily standing. 

“You...the leftover magic, right?” 

She smiles weakly. “Yes. It’s temporary, but it’s something...I should have thought of it earlier.”

“Can you use it to replenish your lost stores?”

“No. The magic sacrificed in the ritual comes from the core. That is not magic easily brought back, not without sacrifice.” Her eyes roam the room, falling on her daughter.

“Who...? No, if I’m in this room...Leona.” She sighs, relieved. “I remember this much.”

“I’m surprised.” I say, blinking.

“There are memories I have that we don’t share. Like her as a very young child, and all the indirect memories. But they are...fragmented. ” Alexandria walks over to the fallen girl and kneels, brushing her hair out of her face. “Much of my life is gone now, but I believe I understand enough. You are to take her away to Alune now, right? I was sure to spend some time monologuing to myself so that I’d know what was going on, in case I went through with this. It seems that the magic left that alone. I also have the memories of quite a few journals...though I’ll have to piece those memories back together, I fear.”

“Right.” I say quietly. “To Alune.”

“Take care of her for me, please.” She whispers. “From all of the rationalization and meditation I had to do in order to make myself go through with this, it’s clear to see that I loved her very, very much. Take care of…take care of my daughter.” 

“I will.” I agree. “I promise.” 

She nods. “Then, it’s time for you guys to head out. We—“ 

A massive explosion rings out from somewhere above us, throwing us off balance. Thankfully, my arm’s finished regrowing, and I catch myself with both hands before springing back to my feet. 

“What happened?!” In an instant, Alexandria’s wand is in her hand, and I can feel her magic probing a moment later. “The…the wards are all down! We’re under attack!”

Dread floods through my veins. 

_The timing…did she…is it possible? I’d never thought to ask! And Alexandria wouldn’t have known, I didn’t tell her…!_

“Reports say the Royal Guardian herself is here.” She pales. “…At the Warp Matrix room, but heading down. Did she follow you? She must have traced your warp…was she there, at the battlefield?!”

I curse. “Yes, she was — but we escaped, so I didn’t think—“ 

“Don’t worry about it.” She shakes her head. “We need to evacuate you three out of here!” She glances down at her daughter. “But…they’ve almost certainly surrounded us from above. You’d have to fight your way out, but Leona…” 

“You can’t wake her up with magic?” Mari interjects, Leona held in her arms. 

“Not after a mental trauma like this! Odds are good it would kill her! She’ll wake up soon — her magic should see to that — but it has to be natural! Any interference after the ritual might disrupt it, and since it dealt so strongly with her mind…” 

“Damn.” I curse. “We’ll need to…need to teleport out—“

I feel the weight of foreign wards fall over us.

“I don’t suppose you’ve retained enough strength to teleport us through the wards?” Mari asks dryly. 

Aleandria shakes her head. “There’s no way I’ll be able to pull everyone through. At best, you’d come out in pieces! These aren’t your typical wards, they’re War Wards! Empowered by the Royal Guardian herself! We’d get vaporized!”

“Could a Warp Matrix?”

“No! They work under virtually the same premise — dissolution through the manastream! The only way to get out from here…we’d have to manually breach them by going through the wards themselves! And pierce any supporting wards!” 

_Dissolution through the manastream? That’s definitely not how my Magia teleportation works, since I’ve no clue how to do that. I’m pretty sure mine just twists space to take me to where I want to go. Hm..._

“Damn.” The ceiling shakes above us. “She’s looking for us, Mari! We’ll need to draw her out as bait! Alexandria, can you guard Leona?” 

“Yes!” She closes her eyes, then nods. “Take Aphelion, Yuki. You’ll need him. And...be careful.”

“I will.” 

…

...

...

We don’t even make it a hundred meters away from the Ritual Room before we run into the rampaging Archmage, fire blazing around her. 

“Aha, found you…” She cheers, tone eerily saccharine. 

I shake my head at her.

“I’ll fight you, but not here. Let’s go up.”

She stares at me, dumbfounded, then laughs.

“I like your spirit, kid. Sure. Go on, girl.” She points at Mari. “Go run away or whatever. I’ve got a date!” 

“…Captain…” Mari whispers. 

“She’s not alone. They’re likely sieging the town, too. You can save the people of Ember.” I murmur. “People who are innocent in their own right. Go, Mari. Save them.”

She clenches her fists. “…Captain…I…”

“I’m ordering you.” I say, injecting ice into my words. “As your master. **Go.** ” 

The brunette slumps. “…yes, sir.” Quickly turning away, her qi kicks into gear as she leaps up with an active Storm Cloak, the steel and earth above her ceasing to exist.

“That’s twice now.” She says, hands on her hips.

I glance at her. “You, of all people, should understand that there are some people worth giving your life for.” 

She chuckles. “I do. Walk with me, would you?” She gestures, and the walls and ceiling forcefully rearrange themselves into a staircase of dirt. It’s a magical feat that I can’t comprehend — but she does it with absolute ease.

“I swear on my honor, my magic, and my life that I, Carlyle Aurora Tsukiqirusa, nor any of my allies or anyone within my control, shall make any attempt to harm you while you are in the staircase with me. I also swear on my honor, my magic, and my life that my intentions here are honest and trustworthy, and that I am making no attempt to trick or otherwise deceive you. Of course, this vow shall only last until I am attacked by Yuki or any of his allies first, or until he makes any attempt to stall our duel or run away from it.” 

I consider the vow. There are a few loopholes, I think, but I don’t detect even the slightest bit of malicious intent from her. Moreover, she’s providing me with what I want — a fight in a place of my choosing, and in a way that buys me some time. 

“I accept your vow. Though I’m curious as to why you’re even bothering with this.” 

“Isn’t it obvious?” She takes the first step, and I follow. “It’s because I want a good fight. It’s really boring, being this strong with no one to properly fight. I’ve petitioned for years to be allowed to go and end the war in the Far North, but they keep telling me all these silly things I’m supposed to worry about like duty and protecting the King.” She snorts. “They’re all fools. I’ve dined with the King since I was a babe. I know he doesn’t need me there to wipe his ass for him.”

“Does he know that, too?”

“Of course.” She laughs. “But it’s always about politics! Politics, politics, politics! I don’t care for dusty backroom deals and blackmail and formality and courtesies! I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”

“You don’t seem like the type.” I agree. “Though you were raised with a full noble’s background, weren’t you?” 

“Yep!” She replies. “Born into it, even. I’m just not cut out for that kind of life.” 

_She reminds me of Mari, in a way. The thirst for battle. The careless, yet gentle way she trusts in her partner. But...Mari possesses restraint. And this woman has thrown that away._

“You would have been better off as a ninja, I think.” 

“Maybe.” She admits. “But I don’t regret anything. Seems like a good policy to live life by.” 

“It would be.” I agree. “I imagine most people struggle to handle you when you’re not playing nice with them.” 

“Huh? You’re not wrong, but what makes you say that?”

“I have a friend like that.” I shrug, as we near the top of the stairs. “We got off on the wrong foot, but things got better.” 

She chuckles. “You’ve lived quite the interesting life for one so young. I think our fight will be fun, then, if you have so much to live for.” 

Without hesitation, she steps into the light, and I follow her warily. But she makes no move to attack, letting the staircase collapse behind me. She’s taken us surprisingly far outside of the village, perhaps a thousand meters. It’s not enough to avoid it becoming collateral, though, if sufficient power is thrown about. 

“You’re being surprisingly lax. Are you not afraid that I will run?”

She smiles. “Where would you run to? There’s nowhere you can run or teleport to that I can’t do better, and I have a Magical Trace on you. I can hunt you down to the end of the world. And I’d be willing to bet that I can chase you for longer than you can run. Also, as I think you can feel, this place is under heavy wards. I doubt you could break through.” 

Now that I’m looking for it, I can feel the small bond between us. I’m not sure how she did it...but it’s definitely there. Then...there really is no way to resolve this, except with the death of one of us.

...Most likely me.

_Sorry, Mari, Leona. Looks like I won’t be making it back._

**Yuki. Status?**

Alexandria’s voice rings out in my head. 

_About to combat the Royal Guardian. She has a Magical Trace on me...so this fight will be to the death. Don’t interfere. Anyone who comes will just become collateral. Tell Leona I’m sorry...and get Mari and her out of here. They’ll be able to escape if I can hold her for a while._

**…Understood.**

“Saying your good-byes?” The violet-haired magus asks indulgently, apparently able to detect the telepathy. “I’ll let you. Though if they interfere, I won’t hesitate to kill them.”

“Were you not planning on killing them earlier?” 

“Eh. I probably should, but it occurs to me that letting you guys run around a little longer’ll be a great way to piss off all those snotheads. And the King won’t really care. So, as long as you scratch my itch for a good fight, I’ll leave after.”

_Her King wouldn’t care if she doesn’t snuff out the Resistance?_

“Would you vow to that?” 

She shrugs. “How? When will I be satisfied? That much I can stretch to be ‘not at all’, should I choose it. Subjective vows are utterly pointless. Just don’t disappoint me by dying too early.” 

She has a point, loathe as I am to admit it. 

“Fair. Give me ten seconds.” 

“Fine.” 

The rest of my Etheria has been sealed in my mouth for emergencies. I swallow it without hesitation. Power surges through my body, more power than I’m meant to handle. 

_It’s not going to be enough to win. But losing here…means death._

With that in mind, the pain can be brushed aside. All of it can be brushed aside, straight into the Veil. 

_That won’t be enough, and you know it._

“You called me an Ice Ninja.” I say slowly. “But…well, I don’t think a ninja will be sufficient to stop you. As I am now, I’ll die without a doubt. The gap between us is simply too much. As a human, I can’t stop you. My limiters…are too severe.” 

“Perhaps. Do you plan on doing something about it?” She asks calmly, as she reaches down and draws her blade. I watch the steel extend farther than it ought to, until eventually she holds her unusually long blade once more. 

“Yes.” 

_I’m sorry, Setsuna, Mari, Sayaka, Hikaru. I’m not sure if I’ll see you again._

The Blood Vow does not restrain me. At least, this way, I will have a fighting chance. 

Slipping into my Mindscape, I face the Veil covering my Spiritual Core. For the longest time now, even when I confessed to Setsuna and was forced to deal with the fallout, I’ve always been very careful to keep it open a bit, so to speak. To ensure that I never completely turn the Veil opaque. I know that if I do…that, I think, is the point of no return. 

_But I have no choice. Failure is not an option here. Therefore…_

“If I can’t beat you as a human…”

_I love you, everyone. I love all of you so much._

_…I love you, Setsuna._

“Then I’ll have to try as a monster.” 

The Veil draws closed.

  
  



	126. (4.6.6) Daybreak, Closing

#  **4.6.6 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Daybreak, Closng (Mari’s POV)**

My blade lashes out, ripping through the magus’s throat and ending his cries. The brief reprieve from combat lets me look around, look at the burning village of Ember. 

Most of its people are dead or dying — the attackers showed no mercy at all, not even to the innocent civilians. So I don’t show any mercy either. I don’t have the time to afford to. 

I flinch again as the earth shakes underneath me, proof of a truly cataclysmic battle happening a few hundred kilometers away. Even someone with as poor grasp of sensing as I can feel it, two titans going at it and holding nothing back. 

_And to think Yuki could fight at that level…_

It’s horribly cold, the energy I can feel. It’s dampening the flames of the town, though insufficient to put them out, yet. 

Something’s clearly and obviously wrong. I don’t know what, though I suspect—

 _And if I’m right…it’s already too late. If he’s...if he has_ **_Incarnated_** _..._

I pick up the pace again, pulling people out from buildings and directing them to safety, tearing apart an enemy magus here and there—

Then it happens — a sharp tugging on my body, my soul, and my mind. I’ve never felt the sensation before, but I know _exactly_ what it is.

_I’m on my way!_

  
  



	127. (4.7.1) Unleashed, Part 1

#  **4.7.1 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Unleashed, Part 1 (Carlyle’s POV)**

“Oh, wow. This is...alright, this is way more interesting than I could have anticipated. You’ve...you’re different, aren’t you? Split personality?” Carlyle wonders out loud. 

Standing a mere ten meters away, Yuki raises his head, eyes glimmering with an unnatural aquamarine energy. “I am.”

“And you speak, too?” Carlyle says thoughtfully. “...Not a fan of the voice, though. A bit cold for my taste. But you have other interesting...assets...” She glances down at where the ground underneath Yuki has frozen with zero visible application of power. Though the sky is still dark with night, both parties are reinforcing their eyes in order to see clearly. 

In response, Yuki unseals Aphelion, the crystal blade tinted an icy blue. 

“I guess I’ll be able to go all-out against you.” She continues brightly, her eyes taking on a crimson glow as her blade shimmers red. “I wonder...in your time here, have you encountered Disintegration Magic? Probably not, right? It is the highest form of Fire Magic there is. There are seven Users in all of Arcacia that have mastered Fire enough to utilize it. And you happen to be looking at the strongest one.” 

Yuki patiently watches her monologue, a blank expression on his face. 

“Have you ever worked your ass off for something only to find that you’d never be allowed to use it? It’s an intensely, uniquely frustrating experience. I’ve been shaped into a weapon that can’t be used.” Carlyle scoffs, crimson sparks dancing around her. “And I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of these restraints that people keep putting on me. They were surprised, you know? Surprised that I just up and left on them.”

“But you know what?” A savage grin crosses her face as her magic coalesces around her, sheer _intent to destroy_ manifesting as a physical presence. “For the first time in my life, I finally feel **free!** _Disintegrate_!” 

Yuki flashes away, moving at speeds comparable to Mari at her nimblest, as a crimson wave of energy ripples out from Carlyle’s body. Everywhere it touches, matter simply falls apart. In a single moment, a twenty-meter sphere has been consumed with the exception of a tiny pillar that she stands on. 

She laughs brightly. “And you dodged! I’ve been looking forward to a fight like this for so long! Well met, Yuki of Alune!” The ground churns beneath her, proof of a cataclysmic transformation under the surface. Moments later, Ice blossoms from the ground in massive spires, frost rapidly spreading along the surface of the ground. Carlyle flies higher, sheathing her blade in order to fill both hands with crimson energy. As she circles one pillar, looking at it curiously, a dozen blood-red orbs blossom around her, following her lazily. 

Stiffening as her senses flare up, she snaps around in time to deflect a jagged Ice spear with a blast of carmine magic, then thrusts her other arm forward. The magical orbs surrounding her launch forward, ripping right through one of the Ice pillars and causing it to collapse with a tremendous crash. 

Yuki emerges from the falling pillar, seamlessly phasing through the Ice, and subtly gestures forward with his fingers. Carlyle releases a burst of Fire from her body that counters the suddenly-materializing frost threatening to freeze her in place, then sends the blaze forth. The Ice Aberrant prepares a counter, but Carlyle teleports behind him a moment later, forcing him to abort his block in favor of deflecting her downward sword strike with Luna. The Ice splits below him from the sheer force of the deflected blow. Moments later, the flames smash into him from behind, but he resists it with his aberration, the fire unable to find purchase— 

So Carlyle sucks it back into her before reusing the energy as a bright-white laser that hits dead-on, punching through the pillar and carving into the frozen earth far below her.

She frowns a moment later. “I should have used Disintegration Magic.” Calling the nearby mana to her, she materializes a dozen more crimson orbs that race towards the ground, seeking a target— 

A flurry of snowflakes behind her alerts her to Yuki’s sudden, unexpected arrival. With wide eyes, she whirls and parries Aphelion’s thrust to the left, a bolt of magic leaping off the blade and tearing a shallow gash through her side. A moment later, she teleports away to safe ground, well away from the Ice backdrop he’s set for her. 

He comes to a stop twenty meters in front of her, landing on the ground with a perfect, mechanical burst of qi that cracks the ground underneath him. 

She tilts her head as the wound on her side slowly seals itself, confused. He’s clearly favored a hit-and-run approach to the fight, so his frontal approach throws her off. Just what is he planning?

Then she feels the magic rising around him, her hand sweeping out. A rapidly expanding cross of Disintegration magic flies out at her gesture, but he merely parries with a double slash from Aphelion that neatly absorbs the magic before he returns it as a raw slash of energy. She backflips away from the burst, then flinches as a burst of invisible magic races towards her. She teleports away, attempting to dodge, but that only results in it reversing direction and slamming into her, staggering her— 

Yuki meets her with a brutal swing of Aphelion — she raises her own blade to parry, the two attacks meeting with an explosive thunderclap of force. 

“You — used the Trace I put on you to...put an enchantment on me?” She grimaces. “An anti-teleportation...?” 

“Break it if you wish.” He retorts coldly, struggling against her. 

“Then I’d be forced to break the Trace.” She grins, channeling more power into her arms and blade. “I think I’ll be just fine, thank you.”

Despite her bravado, though, she’s more than a little worried. The Trace is a subtle thing, a small bond, but one he has no control over. At least, so she’d thought — but he’d somehow managed to use the connection to target a spell back to her. That’s not something she’d even thought was possible! 

But what worries her is the fact that he was able to figure that out by himself. His magical casting is brutish at best — unrefined, poorly controlled, and limited — so casting something like that, and breaking a dozen rules in the process? Someone so unskilled shouldn’t be able to do that, and it’s that uncertainty that worries her. 

Drawing deep into herself, she hurls him away with a combination of magical strength and telekinetic reinforcement, the ground giving way underneath the sheer force she launches forth. A great fissure is carved into the earth, fires sparking across the dirt. Despite that, though, he weathers the strike, rolling a good distance away before racing towards her once more, magic swirling around him. 

With the safety of her Teleportation Magic gone, she starts getting really serious. Crimson magic swirls across her skin, giving her the appearance of a bloody demon as her eyes glow brightly with magic. She flicks her hand forth in an apparently lazy motion, but the ground shatters, proof of a monstrously powerful telekinetic hit. Yuki shields it with an Ice wall that cracks, but deflects enough of the force so that he can power through it. 

For a moment, she considers shattering the Trace she’s using to track his position, but decides that losing the opportunity for this fight would be worse than dying in it. Instead, she changes her strategy and begins leaping away, narrowing her eyes as she hurls more bursts of devastatingly powerful magic at him. He dodges what he can, blocking the rest as well as he’s able to. 

Her mastery over Teleportation Magic is one of the primary linchpins of her combat strategy, and she feels more than a little vulnerable without it. Watching him power through several legitimate attempts to kill him gets her blood pumping with just the slightest bit of fear. It’s that fear, though, that she loves so much — the fear of _death_. Where most others might be paralyzed, she revels instead, her heart racing with excitement. 

A flicker of some truly terrifying magic alerts her in time to dart out of the way of a pair of invisible blades, reminiscent of the Ranged Magical Explosion spell. She grins, returning the favor with her own variant — and is annoyed to find that his spell seems to be better than hers, as he neatly dodges the crisscrossing blades.

And then there’s no time to cast, as they cross blades together once again — magically reinforced steel against Etheria-empowered crystal. Shockwaves send dust flying in their wake, every hit shaking the earth. 

She quickly realizes what his strategy is — every step he takes spreads the Ice beneath them, a creeping field of death that she must avoid. She leaps up high into the air, taking magical flight — then nimbly dodges as he launches a swarm of fast-flying icicles towards her, weaving around a dozen curving projectiles every second. 

Then it’s her turn to attack, a dense crimson orb leaving her hand and falling to the earth. Yuki attempts to shoot it out of the sky, but the icicles melt before they get close. Once it touches the ground, it erupts in a crimson pool of magic that almost feels alive, consuming the Ice with ferocious intent. 

Grinning, Carlyle dives after the fleeing Ice Aberration, her abnormally long blade lashing out at him. He attempts to counter by magically empowering his own blade, but it washes off of her magical cloak. Her own blade gouges through his side, ripping a bloody swathe of flesh out from him. Looping high through the air, she comes in for another pass, but he freezes the ground beneath him before slipping into it. 

She tries to blast him out of the ground with a crimson laser, but hits nothing. Still, though, she can use her Trace on him in order to get a good idea of where he’s at, and...

“You can’t escape!” A hundred tracers of crimson light rain down on the ground, piercing through in an attempt to fish him back out to the surface. He springs out of the ground, moving dizzily fast as her magic races after him, seeking to snuff him out. Aphelion moves as a blur, absorbing the magic into it and making him faster. Narrowing her eyes, she digs a bit deeper into herself, digs deep into her magical core...

The next burst of magic from her is tinged with black streaks, reeking of malevolence. Even from as far away as he is, he’s able to feel her cast it, flinching and almost losing an arm to one of the crimson tracers still chasing after him. A burst of devastatingly powerful Ice Magic eradicates the excess before he turns, power flooding into him as he faces down the swirling bolt of dark magic. 

Then, as Carlyle watches, he brings Aphelion to bear, a massive spike of radiant light eradicating her magic. In the night sky, it’s nearly blinding, forcing her to shift her magic to filter out the excess light.

“What was that...?” She wonders, eyes wide. Shaking herself, she realizes that Yuki is racing towards the barrier of her War Wards and moves to cut him off, using her magical flight to easily put herself between them, landing on the ground with sword raised. 

Without hesitation, he launches himself at her. Surprised at the direct attack, she parries wholeheartedly, their blades crashing into each other— 

Nimbly, he drops down, underneath the reach of her blade, and goes right past her, his power slashing past her magical cloak and into her side as he does. Grimacing, she seizes the Trace connecting them and _pulls_ — 

He’s yanked backwards and off-balanced, surprised, but the Trace breaks from the strain. Before he can do anything about it, though, Carlyle takes advantage of her newfound freedom and teleports directly above him and hits him with a scything crimson axe kick that simultaneously imparts her Trace on him once again. 

He survives, resisting her Disintegration Magic. Still, though, her heel tears wetly through his left shoulder, taking his arm off, and slams him hard into the ground as she flips up, carmine magic in her hands— 

His dismembered arm rapidly turns into Ice, then explodes into a pillar. She teleports away again, her spell disrupted, but simply calls together more power and telekinetically crushes him into the ground with so much force that the earth craters into a flat bowl dozens of meters wide. 

Before the dust even clears, though, anti-teleportation magic crashes into her. Snarling, she flies into the air, hoping to finish him off, but he’s disappeared into the ground again, Ice spreading once more.

One hand touches her side, and it comes back with a bit of blood. She looks at it with an almost childlike fascination. 

“I can’t remember the last time I bled unwillingly in battle...” She mutters, then grins. “Alright. This should be all the greater, then.” Her magic stills for a moment, then flares up intensely, violet flames spiralling around her—

**“COME, SELWYN!”**

Her shout echoes across the shattered, burning earth, snuffing out the lingering flames with the sheer weight behind her magic. Meanwhile, the violet flames grow exponentially, the unearthly power rising into a massive form. Standing on top of it, she grins. 

The Familiar Spirit beneath her is absolutely massive — a twenty meter dragon with jet-black, armored scales. Purple flames intermittently circle around it, and the visible veins in its massive wings glow a bloody crimson. It roars violently upon the completion of its form, the sheer presence of its magic enough to warp the air. 

A hundred meters away, Yuki phases through a patch of Ice, unnerved even despite his Aberration. Blood trickles from his ears, but, to Carlyle’s dismay, his arm is fully regenerated already. 

“Your move, Incarnation!” She calls out, magic bridging the gap between them so that she can taunt him properly. He shakes his head at the wasted magic, but decides to take advantage of it anyways— 

“Incarnation?”

She rears back, surprised. “You don’t know? It’s someone who has become one with their element! It’s basically what exists beyond being a mere Spellweaver. If being a Spellweaver is mastery of an element, an Incarnation is someone who can become their element! That’s what you are! Though, they’re usually far older. Young Spellweavers aren’t unheard of, though fantastically rare...but Incarnations? That’s something really special.”

“I see.” 

Carlyle grins. “I hope you’re ready. I think I’m tired of holding back...I want to see what you’ve got!” 

“This isn’t really a fair fight anymore, is it?” He muses coolly. 

“What of it?” Carlyle asks. “Fights aren’t meant to be fair. You fighting me alone is inherently an unfair fight, anyways. Incarnation or not, I’m stronger, faster, more experienced, and more skilled.” 

“You are more experienced. Stronger? Faster? I know someone who trumps you in both.” 

She blinks. “Who? That sounds like a fun fight.” 

He grins, the expression disconcerting to her. **“Come, Mari!”**

A bolt of lightning slams into Selwyn, the dragon rearing back as Carlyle takes to the air, surprised. Then, in a blue blur, the lightning crashes down next to Yuki. When the dust clears, Mari is revealed, electricity crackling around her.

“Thank you.” Mari murmurs, then glances at him sharply. “Yuki...you...you didn’t...” 

“No choice.” He retorts concisely, voice still cool. “Fight or run.”

“I’m not running anywhere but forward with you...master.” She stands tall, the Storm within her barely constrained. 

“You really...” Carlyle trails off, landing on her dragon. “The man’s given up his life twice for you now, and you just came back? Are you an idiot? Do you want to die so badly?”

The air grows tense with barely restrained power as Mari turns to glare at Carlyle, both eyes glowing bright blue. 

“You’re interested in fighting Yuki because he’s a powerful Incarnation, isn’t he? Your country would tear itself apart around you and you wouldn’t care just because you have something interesting in front of you!” She snarls. “I hate that! I hate you! And I’m going to make you **pay!** **_”_ **

Carlyle’s eyes go wide. “Don’t…don’t tell me…” 

“Yuki’ll hold me back.” Blue lightning arcs down her body, rippling through the ground underneath her, rapidly growing in intensity. “So that I’ll stop when I’ve finished **tearing the meat from your bones!”**

“Two... _two_ Incarnations?” She breathes out, awed. “At your age, too? Alune really has something special going for them! There’s never been two Incarnations in the same place in the modern age! And no one’s ever faced off against two at once and lived to survive the tale, _ever!_ This is perfect. This is...this is fucking amazing.” 

As she speaks, her magic wraps around her Familiar Spirit, carmine magic meshing with the purple flames and leathery scales to create an armored, blood-red titan. Spinning her sword in her hands, she points the crimson-tipped blade at the man and woman far below her. 

“So come forth, Incarnations! I, Carlyle Aurora Tsukiqirusa, the King’s Noble Shield, will strike you down!”

  
  



	128. (4.7.2) Unleashed, Part 2

#  **4.7.2 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Unleashed, Part 2 (Mari’s POV)**

The feeling of being shredded apart from the inside is a sensation Mari is all too familiar with — she grapples with it every single time she brings her Storm to bear, after all. But never like this. Never like this. 

But she gives into the pain willingly, letting it drive her to the deepest recesses of her mind. She doesn’t have a Mindscape, so when she needs to communicate with the power she’s long since suppressed inside of herself, she has no choice but to do something like this. 

Mari is consumed, and in the process, she communes with her Storm. And, this time, she’s not here to contain it. 

_A long time ago...I swore to use this power to protect others, to protect Yuki. Isn’t it...about time I finally got to do that for once?_

Somewhere deep inside her, she knows that he has completely Incarnated, knows that there is no going back. But she pushes aside the part of her that despairs in that knowledge, and hopes, instead, hopes that Yuki can do the impossible. 

But, if anything, Mari swears that she’ll at least keep him safe. 

_He’ll pull me back. The leash ensures it. And...if not, then at least I can follow him._

Her cells tear themselves apart, then reforge themselves, ripping apart her limiters. Her flesh bubbles from the heat of the Storm surrounding her, threatening to melt off of her entirely — but then reforms, healing near-instantly. Slowly, Mari sinks to her hands and feet. It would be almost amusing if it wasn’t for the crushing, _primal_ power rippling out from her Storm Cloak, its form shaped vaguely like a wolf— 

The dragon roars in challenge, a deafening sound that cracks the earth and warps the air. Mari snarls, then roars right back, destroying the magical sound bridge connecting the two parties and bringing raw _Intent_ with it. Carlyle flinches back, her heart stuttering for a moment in her chest, and frowns thoughtfully. 

“My. That’s certainly something else. Just what else are you capable of like that...?” 

“Mari.” Yuki says firmly.

_“Yesss...master...?”_

“Good. You’ve retained some intelligence, at least. Are you going to listen to me?”

_“...Yesss...”_

“Even if I tell you to leave?” 

_“...No. Will not...run.”_

“Fine. I can work with that. Carlyle is still the primary threat here, and you are the most suited for combating her. Do your best to take her down. She uses extremely dangerous Disintegration Magic and telekinesis. I’ve bound her ability to teleport, but she can change that by breaking her Trace on me. I will take the dragon. Wait for my mark, then split them up. Understood?” 

_“...Yesss.”_

A moment of silence, Carlyle still busy analyzing Mari’s power. Then the ground beneath the dragon collapses, surprising it — it beats its wings, creating a powerful draft of wind— 

“Go.” 

Mari opens her mouth and breathes out a blistering blast of pure plasma, a white-hot laser slamming into the face of the massive Familiar Spirit. Though it doesn’t pierce the combination of its Disintegration Magic armor and its own defensive True Magics, it inflicts a great deal of pain to it, disorients it, then splits up upon contact to become a thousand little lightning spears, homing in on its rider. Carlyle takes flight as Yuki follows up with a forceful blast of Ice Magic, sending the Familiar Spirit skidding away from her. 

With a thought, Mari transforms herself into lightning, chasing her down. She’s not _true_ Lightning, of course, but breaking the speed of sound isn’t a problem for her in this state, and she’s above Carlyle in moments, lacing her fingers together then dropping a hammer blow on her. She spins, shocked at her speed, but still manages to interpose a crimson-laced blade between them.

Mari doesn’t care. 

Her hands slam into the magically-reinforced sword, snapping the blade in two before crashing down into Carlyle. At the last second, the older woman manages to shove her away with a desperate telekinetic shove, and her hands miss by a hair.

The force behind them, though, and the Storm around them, are still sufficient to send her streaking out of the sky, crashing into the ground. force. Mari regains her balance mid-air, then charges a bolt of lightning and hurls it where she was, where it detonates with cataclysmic force.

“Mari!” 

Yuki’s warning saves her, the Storm Incarnation zipping out of the way of a point-blank Disintegration Magic bolt from above. Carlyle teleports again, managing to slam a kick into her that hurts her as much as it hurts Mari. The Incarnation staggers, a bit stunned, then transforms back into lightning to avoid her follow-up magic. 

Frowning, the Royal Guardian warps down to the ground, clearly preferring to fight there. Mari dives after her, launching more lightning spears on the way down that Carlyle blocks with visible effort, her broken sword parrying the projectiles into the ground. The Storm User arrives a moment later, delivering a devastating punch that Carlyle tries to dodge with enhanced speed— 

Mari is _faster_ , and seamlessly moves to follow up with impossibly perfect reflexes, forcing her to teleport or lose her head. With her sensory abilities, though, Mari traces her instantly, racing at her on all fours and forcing her to warp out again, this time at a farther distance. A telekinetic blast sends the Incarnation skidding back, clawed lightning digging into the ground, then she launches herself, racing after her target. 

Grimacing, Carlyle takes flight again, launching concussive shockwaves and raw telekinetic power. Mari zips past the focused shots and easily weathers the rest, and simply kicks off the air with bursts of qi once Carlyle thinks to shatter the ground anymore. She can smell it — her opponent is devastatingly strong, but has no method to stop her implacable approach. All she can do is run, and she can feel her opponent weaken a little with every teleportation. Soon— 

Naturally, that’s when things go wrong. Carlyle warps away, this time out of her sight and senses entirely. The little intelligence remaining in her warns her that she likely hasn’t left the battle entirely, and so she channels her power before blasting raw, concentrated energy high into the air as a giant plasma laser. The wind picks up, swirling chaotically, and lightning begins crackling through the air as dark clouds begin to form in formerly clear skies. 

The Incarnation turns around, looking behind her. A great distance away, Yuki can be seen combating the Familiar Spirit, sharp, geometric wings of Ice allowing him to weave seamlessly through the air. Looking closer, she can see the Wind being pulled around him, as well. Twitching, she calls on the massive power high above her and summons a true, genuine lightning bolt, slamming it down into the dragon’s head. For a single moment, it stiffens — then Yuki rams a blindingly-bright, massive magical blade into one of its wings, and the two fall to the ground. 

Snarling in violent satisfaction at helping her Master, even indirectly, she prepares to go over to him before remembering her orders — and _realizing that she’s lost track of Carlyle!_

A crimson glow lights up the night, instantly drawing Mari’s attention — and from the dark clouds bursts the Royal Guardian, hovering contemptuously in the air. Snarling, Mari calls a pair of lightning bolts down from the sky to smite her, but they warp strangely around her before crashing into her. 

And she’s unpleasantly surprised to realize that, though it is her element to command, she isn’t quite a true master yet, and the bolts send her reeling, stunned, for just a moment. 

It’s enough for Carlyle to finish pooling her magic together for a truly powerful spell, and she launches an ominous, ultradense ball of deep crimson magic that radiates intense heat down to the ground. Mari, sensing the threat deep within her bones, opens her mouth, calling her own energy together, and charges for three whole seconds, a dense ball of plasma generating in front of her mouth and rapidly brightening. Her limbs sink into the ground from the weight of her power as her eyes track the falling orb of magic. 

Then she fires, the ball of raw, concentrated Storm travelling at supersonic velocities. Homing in on the magical orb, the bullet crashes into it— 

And then all Mari knows is Fire.

...

...

... 

Consciousness returns slowly. The uncomfortable warmth surrounding her makes her feel lazy, lethargic, and for a moment Mari contemplates returning to sleep—

Then she remembers with sharp clarity just what she had been up to before she blacked out, and in moments she’s on her feet, eyes wide. 

She’s standing in a massive crater, several dozen meters below where she last remembered herself. Of course, she doesn’t remember her vertical alignment to the earth — it’s an assumption she’s making based on the fact that she can see the sloping walls of the crater thousands of meters away. 

The crater itself is a sea of flickering flames, fire burning even with no fuel to sustain it. Her Storm Cloak shields her from the fire, thankfully, and she doesn’t hesitate to use her power to snuff out the flames around her, at least— 

She grimaces, her right arm spasming painfully. For a moment, she’s paralyzed, unable to even close her fingers as agonizing shocks run through the limb — then she regains control, nearly collapsing from sheer exhaustion. Her Storm Cloak flickers out pitifully, the heat of the fire bearing down on her again. 

She ignores it, staring with wide eyes at where she thought she remembered Ember being. The nearby town is just...

_It was...there, wasn’t it? I...It can’t be all gone, can it...?_

_And...Leona, Alexandria, everyone...are they...are they still alive...?_

At least her master — Yuki — he’s still alive and well, it seems. The Familiar Spirit chases after him, breathing blasts of plasma that he nimbly dodges around. Though she longs to help him once more, the dark clouds above have been blasted away, and she can’t move easily. Not as she is.

Her senses pick up someone else approaching, and she slowly turns, unable to muster the strength to do anything else. She’s tired, so very tired, but she knows that if she falls asleep now, she’ll never wake up again. The Royal Guardian lands a dozen meters away from her, looking slightly ruffled but otherwise uninjured. Mari clenches her fists, wanting so badly to charge at her, but knowing that she can’t do anything. Not as weak as she is now. 

“Is this all you’ve got?” Carlyle asks curiously. “If so, I’m disappointed in you. Yuki put up a much better fight with much less raw power.” 

“You...” Mari rasps, her voice strained from all the Storm she fired off earlier, “You destroyed Ember.” 

She shrugs. “I explicitly told my allies to stay far, far away from me. By now, everyone understands just what goes down when I take off the kid gloves. And as for the rest? Ember was pretty clearly a hotspot for the Resistance. They’re all guilty of treason...and the punishment for that is death.” 

“So many—” The Incarnation chokes, “So many of them...were innocent...!” 

Carlyle’s mouth sets into a hard line. “No one said a word. We had no idea that there was something like this here. Not one person spoke up. All of them...are guilty.” 

“What kind of...barbaric reasoning is that...?” She can’t hold herself up anymore, collapsing to her hands and knees. Her next cough sprays out blood onto the scorched earth. 

“It doesn’t matter to you anymore.” Carlyle says quietly. “You are about to die. Any last words?” 

“...I hate you.” 

The Royal Guardian lets out a small chuckle. “I’ve heard that one before. Well, then.” Her Disintegration Magic flares up in her free hand. “If that’s all, then—” 

“You...remind me too much of...myself...” 

The crimson magic sputters out. “What?” 

“You...” Mari laughs bitterly. “You are...what I could have become, if I was more careless. If...I wasn’t intimately aware of the damage I could do...” 

“What good has it done you?” Carlyle asks, all traces of emotion gone from her face. “You are pitifully weak. And now you’re here, slowly dying, awaiting my mercy kill.” 

Mari can feel it, too — the way her very life seems to be slowly seeping out from her. Once it all bleeds away, she’ll pass on, too. But...

“You...call me weak...but always remember, Carlyle, that even if you kill me...” The brunette gasps, feeling her vision go hazy, “When I brought out my full power...you _ran_. Call it a tactical retreat, whatever makes you feel better...but you ran away...you weren’t strong enough to fight me head-on. Because...I had someone worth fighting for...do you?” 

Carlyle remains quiet for a while, clearly digesting her words. Then she sighs, so softly that Mari isn’t sure if she’s really heard it or not. 

“Idiot girl.” The Royal Guardian whispers. “I shall make your death quick.” 

The crimson magic that is to be her death glows once again, but Mari can’t do so much as twitch a finger against it. All she can do is feebly protest, her mind raging in her broken body. 

_...I’m not ready._

_I...I don’t want to die yet. I...I’ve come so far. There’s still so much to do...but what hope is there for me...? Everything is...fading away..._

_But...it’s not gone yet. And as long as I can still think...I can still..._

She remembers something a wise woman once told her— 

‘You should find what it is you want in life, what is most important to you — and make sure that you do everything you can to keep it.’ 

_What...do I want...?_

Her mind wanders, a hundred moments coming and going in an instant, before settling onto a single one. Yuki with a scroll in his hands, looking inordinately pleased with himself — Sayaka laughing — Setsuna walking in, the ghost of a smile on her own face. A time when things had been so much simpler, before any Ice or Magic, and everyone had been happy. 

_I...want to protect the people I love._

She thinks about Ayaka, her beloved, adopted little sister. She thinks about Sakura and Haru, the two owners of the restaurant she spent much of her childhood in, of her dearly departed Nana, who practically raised her for the too-short time they knew each other.

_I want to protect their smiles._

She remembers a smile, a hug, a soft word of reassurance, bonds of friendship and camaraderie that can never be broken. She remembers three people willing to face an army for her, because she refused to turn away. She remembers a little blonde magus and a mother that would sacrifice far too much for her. 

_I can’t protect their smiles if I’m dead!_

She thinks about Carlyle, then, a twisted mockery of who she’s chosen to be. Someone who possesses an incredible, overwhelming power, but chases only after her own fleeting desires, discarding everyone else in the process. It reminds her of her own Storm, willing to hurt even herself. 

She thinks about that future, and, as she has done every other time, firmly rejects it. Because she’s already lived a life of lonely power. 

_One more time, Mari. Just stand one more time._

**_Stand up!_ **

Above the two women, a phoenix cries out, warmth suddenly filling her broken body. Carlyle glances up, surprised, then flinches and leaps backwards as Mari abruptly rises to her feet, the heavy smell of ozone leaking off of her. 

“Look...at you...” Mari pants. “Scared of...a woman who can barely stand...”

Carlyle doesn’t respond, narrowing her eyes instead. Despite her self-deprecating words, there’s something very, _very_ strange about the power the Incarnation is putting out, something that makes her instincts scream out in warning. 

Mari has an idea of where this final burst of power is coming from, but she can’t bring herself to regret it. Not when her fate is unavoidable, anyways. At least, this way, she can take one more step forward. 

A few hundred meters away, Yuki dives, narrowly avoiding another blast of plasma from the dragon. 

“You look...quite tired, Carlyle.” Mari can’t help but grin, able to sense her remaining strength, this close to her. “Did you get tired running away from little old me?” Her legs tense up as power begins to flood through her, one last time. “Guess I’m...not as weak as you claimed, huh?” 

“You have enough for maybe one good spell in you.” Carlyle retorts. “And you’ll never hit me with it.”

Mari smirks, the gathering storm coming to a peak. Her body screams in agony, but, still, she forces herself to hold it together, pushing it beyond what it was meant to bear. She’s always been good at ignoring the pain, anyway. 

“Luckily for you...” Mari’s Storm Cloak reasserts itself. “I don’t need to hit **you** to make it worth it.” 

Carlyle’s eyes widen in realization, but too late — Mari _moves_ at supersonic speed, fist glowing with electricity as Carlyle is forced to teleport or die — then she leaps, up, forward, and comes into the path of her Familiar Spirit. 

**“VOLT LINE!”**

...

...

...

A massive shockwave ripples from the point of impact, all the magical fire coating the crater snuffed out. A few seconds later, the remainder of the dragon crashes into one of the crater walls, already dissolving into ash. 

Mari looks up at the night sky, and at the twinkling stars beyond. A memory pops into her head — holding her dearest friend underneath stars just like this. She hadn’t understood, back then, just what the appeal had been — but she understands now.

_They’re...beautiful._

Her vision is blocked off, just slightly, by one of the people she really, truly cares about. Now she's the one being held underneath the sparkling night sky — it's a twist that she finds a little funny. 

“Mari...” Yuki whispers, holding her broken body. She peers into his eyes through fading vision — they’re locked right on hers, those dark blue eyes — and, more importantly, they’re untainted by the too-natural coldness that shielded his thoughts when he’d Incarnated. 

_You’re free now, aren’t you...?_

She grins, one last time, then closes her eyes.

  
  



	129. (4.7.3) Unleashed, Part 3

#  **4.7.3 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Unleashed, Part 3 (Yuki’s POV)**

**Yuki?! Are you there?!**

The Ice drains away from me, something I hadn’t thought truly possible. I’d hoped, of course — that after the battle was over, my Blood Vow might pull me back out. But I realize now that was foolishness — the Blood Vow might change myself, but the Ice _overwrites_ it. It wasn’t that which saved me, but something I had almost forgotten entirely. Somewhere, deep in my soul, Moonlight — _not_ Daylight — awaits my call, the blessing of the Phoenix Familiar Spirit having drained into me. Somewhere above me, Spark cries out triumphantly, then vanishes back into the Spirit Realm. 

A genuine True Magic, rewriting the rules I had thought set in stone. This is what my Magia can only imitate. 

_But it will have to be enough. Please._

Mari lies deathly still in my arms, having lost consciousness after her awe-inspiring Volt Line. In a single move, she did what my Incarnated self had tried and failed to do, and wiped Selwyn off the face of the earth with one blow. For all its defensive and regenerative magics, it hadn’t been able to absorb the sheer power that Mari had brought to bear. But it seems that effort — or perhaps, all of the power she had thrown before — has crippled her. No, worse than that. I can feel it, what with my own familiarity with Etheria. I can feel her life slowly draining away from her. 

But by now, I know how to manipulate Etheria. I’ve done it for years, after all. Longer, even, if you count every single usage of Ice. And, so, without hesitation, I use my Etheria to lock hers into her body, preventing any more from escaping even as I gift a little bit of my own. 

It...works. Her breathing stabilizes, and color returns to her body. She’s not safe yet — there is still plenty of medical work to be done, and I’ve only put a bandage over the real problem — but she’s stable, at least for now, and that’s the important thing. 

**Yuki! Status!**

Alexandria’s voice rings through my head again, soft but urgent. 

_I am...alive, but starting to run low on power. Mari is critically injured, but stable, and requires evacuation. Carlyle is...inbound._

**Damn it. Okay. I can’t leave my daughter. She’s too disoriented to be alone right now — there’s been some mental backlash I hadn’t anticipated. I can’t leave her unless one of you comes here to help her. She should recognize one of you.**

_Take Mari. You’ll need to heal her, though. Her acute physical injuries aren’t critically severe, but..._

**I’ll do my best. Standby.**

“Seems they survived after all, huh?” Carlyle’s voice calls out from behind me, her slow footsteps marking her approach. I turn to face her, somehow unsurprised that she hasn’t simply smited me from the air. 

“Yes. You grew pretty close to breaking our rules, though.” 

She shrugs. “They survived, right? Not a big deal.” She glances down, looking at Mari. “I’m killing her, though. I told you earlier that if people interfered, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill them...what are you doing?” 

A dagger of Ice settles at my throat. “If you want your fight, you’ll leave her be.” 

She blinks, then laughs. “You think that’ll actually stop me?” Her hand comes up, crimson magic dancing around her fingertips. I drop the knife and position myself between them and prepare to deflect it, even if my tired body screams at the thought of using Etheria— 

Alexandria warps in, Carlyle’s hand moving to aim at her instead and firing in the span of a second. It’s too late, though — she picks up Mari and vanishes, the blood-red bolt ripping a hole through the earth instead.

“Alexandria Dawn, huh? Didn’t think she would turn traitor...”

“You don’t sound too bothered.”

“We were acquaintances.” She shrugs. “I’m more interested by how weak she feels right now. I don’t think she’d give me a good fight like that.” 

“Still not satisfied?”

“Hell no!” She replies promptly. “This fight is to the death.” She levels her blade at me.

**Mari is going to take some work, but I can fix the worst of the damage. Will you be able to hold out?**

_Five minutes, I think. Maybe._

**Good luck.**

“I think I’m getting tired of all the distractions, though.” Carlyle smirks. “So... _Grand Arena!”_

Before I can react, magic swirls around us, forming a crimson hemisphere around us. It’s not very large, perhaps fifty meters across in all directions. 

_Alexandria?_

“You can’t communicate with people through these wards.” Carlyle informs me, looking a bit smug. “It’s just you and me, now.” 

I sigh, then draw Luna in one hand and Aphelion in the other. The strain on my tired nerves causes me to wince, but I shove the pain beneath the Veil. I’m tired — physically, I’m still doing okay, but my Etheria has been taxed since the very beginning, and the strain of using it is wearing down my body. 

I can’t even hope to stall, this time. Not with the wards. All I can do is try to— 

“Are you giving up?” She says scathingly. “What happened to all of your earlier bravado?” 

I stiffen. 

Then I force my Ice to flow through me, the power suffusing through my body. My Incarnated self used primarily magic and Etheria, so I still have a lot of qi left to me even if my weak magical core is almost completely exhausted. 

I glance around at the ward barriers. Maybe if I tried to absorb the magic within the wards...? But no, even if I managed to do that, then she would just...take down the wards.

Oh. 

_Aphelion?_

**Understood.**

Carlyle flinches, then glances at the purple blade. 

“Now that is a fascinating trick you’ve got there. I wasn’t sure until just now...but that crystal blade absorbs magic, huh?” 

“Why would you care?” I retort. “Since when have you cared about strategy when you can just power through...everything...” I pause, deciding to finally, _finally_ , analyze her power. What I find gives me new hope. “You’re not doing so hot yourself, are you? Looks like Mari tired you out more than you thought.” 

Carlyle observes me thoughtfully, slowly pacing back and forth. “However poorly off I may be, you are far worse off.” 

Her words ring true. If it wasn’t for the Ice I’ve driven into my essence, I would not be standing. 

“Perhaps.” I acknowledge. “But I’ve long since learned to ignore such insignificant details.” 

She smiles, coming to a stop in front of me. “It’s been a long time since I’ve needed to fight with finesse, that is true. But I haven’t always been this strong.” She thrusts both hands outwards, and two intricate knives fall into them, one white, one black.

_Knives? On a woman like her?_

They seem to fit perfectly into her hands, though, delicate runes glimmering crimson. I narrow my eyes, attempting to analyze the magic wafting off of them, but all I’m able to divine is that they are...bonded? 

_Partnered blades?_

She grins, dropping her arms back to her sides before crouching slightly. In a sudden, explosive movement, she hurls the black blade forward, and I move to slap it out of the air— 

She warps to it, catches it, and slips underneath my guard, slashing up with the white blade. Carmine magic ripples out from the blade as I hurl myself back, the magic slashing into my side and opening a bloody, though shallow, wound. 

_If I hadn’t sensed her intent, I’d be dead!_

She hurls the black blade again at me, but at a strange angle — I opt to shift away from it, keeping both the blade and the woman in my sight. It’s a good thing I do, as the blade abruptly reverses directions and comes back to try and stab me, Carlyle moving to put me between the two— 

Grimacing, I aspect shift and spin, sending Wind blasting out from Aphelion in a circle. She flashes to her knife and leaps away, leaving the range of my attack.

“Heh...how familiar...” She mumbles under her breath. I don’t bother to ask what she’s talking about, deciding instead to close the gap with her. I don’t want to give her the time to rest. Aphelion comes up, sending a wide blast of pure magic at her— 

She hurls the black knife straight up, warps to it, then tosses it directly at my head. Before it even gets close, though, she warps right back to it, utilizing her magical flight for just long enough to float over my Wind counterstrike. 

Everything after that happens in a blur — she launches a blood-red bolt of magic that I’m forced to sidestep — she drops the blade knife mid-air — then, as I’m scrambling away, trying to keep track of everything, she pulls out a _second_ pair of them. 

I close my eyes and shove myself into my Mindscape, searching for a solution. It takes half a second for one to become known to me. My eyes flash open, and I tumble away, dissipating Aphelion as a knife stabs into the ground where I was just standing. Carlyle teleports to it, scoops it up with the ease of practice, and hurls both at me, before pulling out _yet another pair—_

I stop thinking entirely, listening only to the voice in my head and my raw, unfiltered instincts. A knife from behind, deflected — a burst of Disintegration Magic, dodged — Carlyle teleports behind me, and is met by a burst of Air — she warps out — one knife is pulled to the other, and I tilt my head to avoid it — sidestep another thrown knife, then lash out with Luna, Carlyle swaying away from the blow — she disappears — four knives are in the air, curving hypnotically — none will connect, the real attack is from behind — six knives in the air, now, all converging on me — Wind deflects them away, but Carlyle’s managed to embed a black knife in the ground— 

_Mistake._

Teleporting to the knife is _easier_ , but that doesn’t mean she’s magically forgotten how to teleport normally, and so I’m almost — _almost_ taken by surprise when she warps directly behind me, sans black knife. 

The blunt end of a quickly-materialized Moonlight crashes into her stomach for just a moment before she warps away, but the feeling of impact is unmistakable. I straighten up from my reverse strike, pivot, and hurl Moonlight like an overlarge knife as Carlyle staggers back from the strike. She’s not so off-balance as to be caught by something like that, though, and manages to dodge it.

“What the hell!” She snarls, winded. “There’s no way you’re keeping up with that! I had _five pairs—”_

I materialize Luna, striking at her again, but she warps away before I connect. This time, though, she staggers upon landing, eyes wide, and I grin viciously.

_She’s running out of power!_

No matter how good she seems to be at teleportation, there must be a limit. With how strong she is, she probably doesn’t even know her limit anymore! But she’s been fighting for so long this night that she’s finally, finally starting to scrape at the bottom of her reserves! For the first time, we’re approaching equal ground! 

She manages to materialize a longsword formed out of her trademark crimson magic in time to block my blade. Reaching my free hand out, I conjure a second copy of the blade and begin slashing at her, my feet light upon the ground as I rain blow after blow down on her, constantly pressing down on her to try and make her slip up. On the other hand, her movements are fiercely economical, every step controlled, every movement precise. 

And then she begins striking back, and I’m forced to acknowledge that she is still my superior in swordsmanship. Her blade punishes me for every overextension, cutting shallow wounds into my flesh. 

And her eyes! Her eyes are startlingly bright, a savage grin on her face as we trade blows back and forth. One copy of Luna shatters under her overwhelmingly powerful strikes, and she doesn’t hesitate to press the attack, forcing me to defend with a two-handed stance. But I refuse to let her keep me on the defense, infusing my body and blade with a dangerous amount of power. Soon, every slash is accompanied by a powerful shockwave of opposing magics, blazing Fire against freezing Ice— 

But what’s in my heart isn’t the icy Void — it’s a burning desperation, an ironclad resolve to defeat the woman in front of me and live on. A thirst for victory that I’ve never felt before. Because no one’s pushed me like this! I’m scared, so very scared — because I’m not ready to leave this world! I’m not ready to give up on all the people I know and have come to love!

_I’m not ready to leave you, Setsuna!_

Perhaps it’s that contradiction to blame, then, because Luna finally gives out under the strain of the magic and power I’ve forced into it, and it violently explodes as we trade strikes again in a burst of Fire and Ice. 

Carlyle and I are sent flying away from each other, tumbling across the ground. I force myself up to my feet, then stagger, collapsing forward onto my hands and knees as my body protests, the adrenaline having drained out of me. 

Thankfully, she’s not doing better — I expect her to teleport over to me any second now to sink a bolt of Disintegration Magic into my head, but she’s too busy coughing up blood onto the ground. It seems like I’m not the only one who’s pushed myself past my limit. 

But...no matter how hard I fight against her, no matter how abhorrent I find her actions — for some reason, I can’t bring myself to hate her! 

“Is this...what you really wanted, Carlyle?” I gasp out, trying to regain control of my body. “This fight to the death. Was it...really worth putting your life on the line for? Was this...what you dreamt about?”

“...What are you saying?” The violet-haired magus across from me chokes out. She pushes herself to her feet, but doesn’t even take a step before collapsing on wobbly legs and falling back down.

“It must be...such an empty life...that you lead, if you’ve only ever wanted a fight like this.” 

She laughs bitterly, conjuring a walking stick and using it to push herself up. “I...was _made_ to be like this. You are a fool...if you think anyone would _want_ to be like me.” 

Her words resonate with me, even as I draw a throwing knife and hurl it right at her. She blocks it with the conjured cane, but it breaks in two from the impact, sending her to her knees. 

“Then why? Why do you still fight?” 

She doesn’t answer, simply struggling to her feet again. I test my body again, and am pleased to feel that I can force it to accept a tiny bit of my qi without tearing itself apart. Slowly, I rise, too, unsealing one of Katsuo’s blades. 

“It’s because you have nothing else, right? You want to fight because you think it makes you feel alive, but do you...even remember what that’s really like?” Instead of racing forward — I think I might collapse on my face — I stand my ground, trying to gather as much strength as I can. “Do you remember, Carlyle, what it means to be alive? Because I do. I do, because...” My grip tightens around my blade. “I have friends. And...back at home, I have a partner, just like you. Heh, she’s even royalty in a strange, twisted way. And I would give anything for her! I can push myself like this because I know what it is like to _love!_ But do you, Carlyle? Do you still remember, or are you only tied to your partner now out of duty?!” 

She charges forward, drawing the splintered remnants of her blade from her sheath. But...her attacks lack conviction, and within a dozen exchanges I’ve disarmed her, my blade slashing across her arm before both of us collapse, our strength spent once more. My blade digs into the ground, holding me up as I look down upon her. 

“I...am just a tool.” She pants out. “But...he is all I have. And I won’t...I won’t let him down.” 

“Then stop seeking death!” I muster the will to take a step forward as she rises again, managing to construct — of all the things — a glass sword. My strike doesn’t shatter it, though, and a moment later, the blunt side of her blade smacks against my wrist, disarming me before snapping into two pieces. The construct falls to the ground a moment later, as Carlyle lunges at me, howling wordlessly. She tackles me to the ground, her hands snapping around my throat and beginning to squeeze the life out of me as she straddles me. 

“Grk—” 

“I’ll kill you—” She gasps out. “Even if it kills me!” 

My hands claw at her arms, drawing blood, but her grip is implacable. I slip into my Veil, a little deeper than intended, and then my body stops instinctively trying to undo her grip and instead moves to punch her hard in the jaw. She dodges the strike, but a blast of wind strikes her in the face.

_I can’t believe that stupid Air Blur technique worked!_

She falls back, stunned, and in an instant, my hand has snatched one of the halves of her glass blade, and frozen it over with Ice. Quickly, I scramble up, kick her as she recovers her senses, then straddle her waist, the makeshift blade digging into the side of her neck. 

She stares, eyes wide with disbelief. Then...the fight leaves her, the tension in her body draining away as she closes her eyes, a sad little smile on her face. 

I...

She’s one of the strongest fighters in all of Arcacia, and a powerful piece in the Highborn’s camp. Killing her would be an act of military achievement. 

As someone perfectly willing to watch innocents be murdered in a senseless war — as someone who perhaps already _has_ — killing her would be an act of moral good.

As someone who knows the true allegiance of Alexandria Dawn, a woman who has only been kind to me at great personal cost, killing her would be an act of repayment.

As someone who represents a great personal threat to me via what she knows about me, killing her would be an act of self defense. 

As someone who has attempted to kill one of my dearest friends on more than one occasion — I still do not know Mari’s condition — killing her would be an act of vengeance. 

But yet...but yet...

I pull the blade away. 

“What...what are you doing?” She asks weakly, her eyes blinking open. 

I grimace. “I won’t take you away from your partner. Not when it’s been so long since I’ve held my own.” I throw the blade away from me, then shakily roll away from her, standing up. “Go home, Carlyle. And see if your partner really does treat you as a tool, or if perhaps you’ve just forgotten that he really does care for you. But, really...you should feel free to live your own life. With or without a partner.” 

“Strange words...from a ninja.” She slowly sits up, looking like she expects me to change my mind. 

I incline my head in agreement. “I wouldn’t have thought this, not so long ago. But the people I’ve come to treasure have changed that — changed _me_. Maybe it isn’t too late for you to change, either.”

She contemplates my words, then, silently, dissipates the wards holding me within her arena, staggering to her feet.

“I won’t turn traitor to my King, but I won’t stop you. The War Wards are your problem to worry about. As for me? I’m out. You’re an idiot, Yuki, but I do hope you make it through this. See you later. It was...fun.” 

She teleports out before I can reply.

“...Damn.” 

_Wait. See you later?_

“I’m inclined to agree with the sentiment.” A familiar voice says dryly. I turn to see Alexandria, the woman apparently all ready for battle. 

“I stalled five minutes?” I say sheepishly — then my legs collapse underneath me. She catches me before I plant myself face-first into the ground, a surprisingly gentle magic flowing into me. 

“Imbecile.” She mutters. “All your systems are shot to hell. I’m going to put you to sleep for a moment.” 

“Yup, thanks—” 

Darkness.

...

...

...

It isn’t that much later when I’m pulled from the sweet bliss of unconsciousness, my eyes blinking open to reveal the tightly-warded Ritual Room. It seems that the base was deep enough to survive Carlyle’s S-Ranked tantrum, for the most part. I’m lying on the ground, Alexandria directing her magic into my abdomen. 

Before I say anything, though, I probe my body quickly. I’m...decently healthy, I suppose. My Etheria is heavily depleted, as is my magic and qi. For all of that, though, my injuries weren’t too severe. But...

I shake my head, getting Alexandria’s attention. And...

“Leona?”

The blonde turns to me, her eyes blank for a moment before she places me. “Ah, Yuki. Did...you win?”

I consider the events of the last few hours, and what it cost. Mari is crippled. Leona’s memories have been mostly wiped. Alexandria’s identity and allegiance is now known to the Highborn. My Etheria has been dangerously depleted, not to mention some of the other damages I’d noticed to my body — damages that weren’t immediately fading away, either. 

“I didn’t lose.” 

It seems to be appropriate. 

“You sent out Spark, right? His presence was...helpful. Thank you for that.” 

Leona nods, but doesn’t reply.

My head tracks to the side, searching for Mari. I’m relieved to find her against another wall, apparently fast asleep. 

“Can we wake her up?” I ask Alexandria, unsure if I trust Leona’s judgement on the matter. The young magus is clearly disoriented, eyes roaming around the room as if it’s all new to her. I can only hope that she’ll snap back to normal, given a little time. 

Alexandria nods, then flicks her wand at her. Mari’s eyes snap open, sparks flickering around her as she leaps up — then she trips and falls flat on the floor, barely catching herself with outstretched arms.

“Ow.” 

“Relax, Mari. You are fine.” 

“...I can’t move.” 

“Alive.” I revise my words, suddenly feeling a deep sort of exhaustion. More than anything else, I just want to go home. 

“Oh.” Her voice is muffled by the floor. 

“You two are...stable.” Alexandria says, moving over to Mari and resting a hand on her shoulder. “I can’t do much more for you. You will both need to see specialized healers, and soon.”

I nod. “I...know a person.” Mari snorts as Leona tentatively makes her way over as well, helping Mari to her feet. Thankfully, she seems strong enough to stand on her own two feet — at least for now. 

“Then...” Alexandria trails off for a moment. “We should say our goodbyes here, then.” She draws a Warp Crystal from subspace. “All the preliminary work for this has been done — I just need you guys to set the location for it.” 

“Right...Leona, do you happen to recall our letters?” 

“Yeah...I have them.” She pulls them out of thin air. “Erm, Lady…Lady Dawn, do you think…before news gets out, if you could deliver these…” 

“No promises.” She says, nodding. “But I’ll try.”

“Then…thank you for everything, Alexandria.” I bow deeply. “You’ve given a lot for me, and I feel like I have not enriched you in return.” 

She smiles. “That’s perfectly fine. I shall be receiving repayment, anyways.” She doesn’t have to look at Leona to get her meaning across. “And besides, you have performed a great service, both for me and for my country. It’s our turn, now. We’ll give them something else to think about, alright?”

I nod. She walks forward, until she is within arms reach, and sticks out her hand. Gathering my resolve, I take her hand and shake it firmly.

Now, what’s this...? 

**I’ll be fine, Yuki. I may not be as strong as I was, but my absolute worst is a great deal above most people’s best. It’ll be a very nice vacation — perhaps I’ll be able to return as a civilian, when things settle down. Do not worry about me. You shall have far more to be worried about.**

_I…understand._

**Keep Aphelion, too. You will need him. As for that note...read it when you are safe, then destroy it.**

_Understood._

Mari curtsies. “Well met, Lady Dawn. May the Lightbringer guide you to a brighter tomorrow. Thank you for everything you have done for Yuki and I.” 

Alexandria nods. 

Lastly…

“You…” Leona’s voice cracks. “You are my mother, right? I understand enough…the Ritual of Succession, I read about it once, and I…that’s why I’m stronger, but I’m missing so much of my life, right…?” 

The Spellweaver nods, looking unsteady. 

“…I…I see…” Tears start dripping down from her face. “I…I wish you hadn’t…I really, really wish—“ 

“I’m sorry, daughter.” The mother moves forth, embracing her only child. “I’m sorry. But it’s all I could…all I can do for you now. The rest…the rest is up to you. Here, take this.” 

“Wha…?” 

Alexandria steps back and unseals a small, wrapped box, and presents it to Leona. “Look through it later, when you are safe. You’ll understand more.” She smiles, eyes shining with unshed tears. 

“I...thank you, Mother.” 

She smiles one last time at us, then closes her eyes, pouring her power into the Warp Matrix. It shines, first in red, then white, then rainbow light, humming with a warm, gentle power. Eventually, the glow fades away, and she presses the crystal into my hands. 

I nod to the eldest Dawn one last time, then take the hand of my sister and my best friend as she quickly departs the room to avoid getting caught in the teleportation — or perhaps to avoid watching. I’ll never know. 

“Leona, what do you need from us to coordinate this thing?” I ask, eyeing the Warp Matrix. She takes it from me, closing her eyes and concentrating. 

“I...with a jump as far away as Alune is, I’m going to need memories. Unless you happen to have a map.”

“Memories it is.” I muse, then grin. “Hey, Leona, remember how you taught me Illuminate?”

“Huh? Physical contact, but what does that have to do with—” 

“Hey, Mari, I need you to concentrate hard on my house. My bedroom, maybe, would be best, that idiot probably has seals scattered everywhere in the living room...you’ve seen it before, haven’t you?”

“A few times, yeah. Alright. I’ve got it in my head.”

My eyes catch Leona’s. “Alright, now pucker up.”

“Wha—?”

Leona takes advantage of the moment I’ve gift-wrapped for her, and kisses Mari soundly, drawing the knowledge from her mind. 

“Wha—?!?” 

“Got it.” The blonde magus flashes a bright smile. “Teleportation target locked. Ready?”

“Yes. Take us away, Leona.”

_Hikaru, Sayaka…I’ll be able to see you. I’ve missed you all so much…!_

_And Setsuna…_

Oh, Setsuna. 

You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, how much I’ve tried not to think of you, because it was distracting at times, damn it! I’ve had to keep the Veil engaged for so long just so that you wouldn’t linger in my thoughts! But…now that I’m going home…

_I’ve missed you, Setsuna._

_I really want to see you. I want to see you!_

“ _Mazuateru!”_


	130. (4.7.4) Closing (???'s POV)

#  **4.7.4 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Unleashed, Closing (Carlyle’s POV)**

“I’m…back.” 

My teleportation has taken me to a familiarly ornate, but functional room — namely, the War Room, capital W and R, where my best friend, King of all of Arcacia, is having some kind of meeting with his top advisors. 

“What happened at Em—” The King’s eyes widen. “Carlyle?! You’re…medics! Get some medics in here!” Abandoning all decorum, he rushes to me, still shouting orders. “Meeting adjourned!”

“But, sire—“ One interjects. 

“Get out of here!” He snarls. 

“I’m…I’m okay.” I reassure him weakly, then collapse, blacking out.

...

...

...

The next time I wake up, I feel far better. My eyes lazily take in my surroundings — I’m in my bed in the castle, the King sitting on the bed next to me. 

“You’re awake.” He says, relieved. 

“You…” I cough, and he brings a cup of water to my lips. I swallow gratefully. “You…don’t you have…responsibilities?” 

“Fuck those.” He says frankly. “I have advisors for that. They can manage for a while without me holding their hands.” 

Despite the seriousness of what he’s doing, I chuckle harshly. “Just like…old times, huh?” 

He cracks a small smile, then shakes his head, a serious look on his face. “You…I’m relieving you from combat duty, effective immediately. Take some time to yourself.” 

I flinch. “Am I…too weak to guard you?” 

“What the hell…?” He shakes his head. “That isn’t the problem at all. I want you to recover without any distractions. You were…badly injured. You might never fight at the same level again. I’ve never, ever seen you so drained — your heart stopped, you know? That’s how far you pushed your magical core.” He grips my hand. “I thought I was going to lose you. Don’t scare me like that.” 

“You…were worried?” 

“Of course I was!” His grip grows tighter. “I…we haven’t had much time to ourselves, not since I became King. But I still care about you, idiot!” 

_‘Perhaps you’ve just forgotten that he really does care for you.’_

Unbidden, a tear slips down my cheek. 

“Are you — are you _crying_?” 

I laugh, leaning over burying my head into his chest. It feels as good as it used to, all those years ago. He sighs exasperatedly, patting my head. 

“Thank you, Ed. Thank you for everything.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omitted the chapter title for spoiler reasons. 
> 
> And with this, we're...basically done with Act 4. There's three more chapters, but they're short, sweet, and simple. Mostly.


	131. (4.8.1) Autumn Leaves

#  **4.8.1 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Autumn Leaves**

It’s to my unpleasant surprise that I land in what appears to be a tub of water. Slipping, I fall face first — thankfully, it’s rather big, so I don’t hit my head against the sides. 

“What the hell?” The words are cut off by the reality of swallowing water, and so I surface, gagging, even as I call on my senses to figure out where I am—

And I freeze.

“…Setsuna?” 

My partner stares at me, eyes wide. In one hand is a small towel and a bar of soap— she’d probably intended to…what, bathe in here? Is this designed to be some kind of bath? Why not just use a shower? And how did I get here in the first place?

…Why am I wasting time thinking about all of that?

“Yu…ki?” 

I grimace, stepping out of the bath. A minor application of Ice freezes the water off me, though the burning in my veins warns me from using much more than that. 

“Um. Hey.” I smile awkwardly. “I’m back.” 

Slowly, she reaches out a hand and presses it against my cheek. 

My smile widens, becomes more genuine. “I’m real, Setsuna. I’m right he—“ 

My breath is cut off as she embraces me tightly. Though my bones creak in protest, I don’t say anything — after all, I’m holding her just as tightly, breathing in her scent— 

_Mm, apple._

“I’ve…missed you so, so much, Yuki.” 

I press a kiss to the top of her head. 

“And I you, Setsuna. And I you.” 

There’s a million things I’ll have to take care of later. The report to Alunian higher-up alone will require intense thought, if I want to ensure Leona’s safety. And I don’t even know what to do about my status as an Incarnation, or as a Magia User. 

But right now? 

Right now, everything is okay.

  
  



	132. (4.8.2) Summer Blossoms

#  **4.8.2 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Summer Blossoms**

* * *

Dear Selena Tsuzera, second daughter of the Tsuzera family, 

I, well. You’re probably going to be mad when you realize what I’ve done. So for what I’m about to put you through, I apologize. I apologize a million times over, because you have been only the truest of best friends to me. But I trust you, at least, with the truth. You, and a few others — so it’s really very important that you don’t let this one slip, okay? 

I’m alive. Ignore what everyone else is saying. If this is being delivered to you, I’m alive. You should be more worried about what happened if you _didn’t_ get the letter...but, anyways, I digress. I’m alive, Selena, so you can stop crying. You’ve always been an ugly crier. 

Hopefully you’ve stopped crying by now. I guess I owe you an explanation of just what’s going on, right? Well, I...to put it simply, I’ve followed my brother back to his country of origin. His real country of origin. You should be able to put the pieces together by now. Why? Well, to keep things simple...

Arcacia isn’t for me. I’ve known this for the longest time, and you’ve known, too. So I’ve escaped. But, Selena, I swear I’ll come back for you. I know you’ve been trapped in your own betrothal, and I’m hardly going to leave you to it! So, I’ll be back! Assuming you haven’t fallen in love, that is! 

...But I’m sorry to say that Aspen is off-limits, you silly girl. The man has someone else at home, someone he is intensely, intensely devoted to. And _no_ , I don’t know that because I tried to seduce him! Don’t even say it! You know of my preferences, anyways. 

I think that’s all I have to say in this letter. I have to keep it short — my idiot brother didn’t exactly give me much time — but I promise, I’ll be back. I’m going to return and begin purging the rot from this country, one way or another. 

And who knows? Maybe I’ll bring a certain someone with me, too. Oh, and my brother, I guess. 

Stay safe, alright? And look out for Robin. Silly boy’s helpless without someone looking out for him, and now that I’m not there, the job falls to you. You have my sincerest condolences. 

Destroy this letter after you’re done reading it. I mean it! 

Love,

Leona Dawn, first and only child of the Dawn Family.

* * *

Qiratisa.

Look after Selena, alright? She’s going through some rough times. I’ll put in a good word with Kristia for you. I know you’ve had your eye on her for the last three years. 

I can even personally confirm that her butt does, in fact, look as good in the nude as you think it does. And she has a _lovely_ tongue piercing. Uh, not that I’d know from personal experience or anything. 

I’ll be back. Try not to do anything stupid while I’m gone.

Love,

Leona.

* * *

Dear Cynthia,

I’m not dead. 

Save a bottle for me, would you? It’ll save me the time of needing to steal it when I come back. 

Thanks,

Leona.

* * *

Mother.

I...

(There follows a series of lines with hastily crossed out words.) 

I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say, I guess. I usually don’t, with you. But that’s just how things have been ever since the Ritual of Succession became tradition for us. I’ve always been afraid to say anything, because I’ve known that every memory might become a sacrifice for the next ritual, and I’ve never had the courage to tell you no. Not when I know that you sacrifice just as much for me. 

But now that I’m not facing you — now that I know I’ll be far, far away by the time you read this — I can say it now, I think. I don’t really want power, not the way you’re giving me. I don’t even think I want much of it at all. Fighting is fun, don’t get me wrong. I love the competition. But it’s not what I want to do. I want to do so much more than that! I want to be a researcher, Mother, I want to study old magic and unravel its secrets. 

But instead I’ve been made a mage-knight. I — I do take pride in it! And I don’t think that it’s been bad for me, not by any means. Lightbringer knows I’ve certainly used my training often enough! But, I don’t want it, not if it means that I sacrifice my memories for it! I know you’ve intended for me to undergo the Magikana soon, but I don’t want to! I’d prefer the Magitsuna to refine my already high-control, and then, well, then I really could make miracles happen. 

I’m even more encouraged to do so, what with the past few weeks. Yuki and Mari are plenty strong enough, and it’s not like I’m useless, either! Even with the Magitsuna, I would still have more raw power to throw around than most of the graduating students. And now I have Spark, too! He’s a young Familiar Spirit of Fire, but he’s pretty strong, too! And he even fits well with me — phoenixes are creatures of light, healing, and rebirth! I don’t think I could have asked for anything better, and Yuki just _gave_ him to me! Well, more like introduced him to me, but you get the idea. 

I...I don’t need to be powerful, Mother. I just wanted a mom. 

I...

(The paper grows a little damp.) 

I’ll come back. And when I do, I’ll be strong enough to tell you everything that I was too afraid to tell you now. 

I love you, Mother.

Thank you for everything. I won’t let you down, I promise.

Leona Dawn

  
  



	133. (4.8.3) Winter's Bloom

#  **4.8.3 Spellborne — Book 2**

#  **Winter’s Bloom**

* * *

Dear Selena Tsuzera, 

Thank you for your hospitality. And, more importantly, thank you for taking care of my sister, all these years. I understand that she eventually intends on returning, and I intend to return her in good health and high spirits. 

There is...much going on beyond the background that you are not privy to. I’ll allow your mother to decide how much you should be allowed to know. Please understand that keeping these secrets is paramount to Leona’s safety. I trust that should be sufficient to seal your lips, if my judgement of you — and Leona’s — is correct.

I feel as though I owe you an apology, however. I am not the charming young man you thought I was — anything but, to be perfectly frank. But it is the role I needed to play, back then. I am sorry for allowing you to think that was who I was. In truth, I am a much colder individual. 

I would suggest not burdening yourself with further thoughts of me, and forgetting me entirely. I have come to understand, though, that it is not that simple for most. Therefore, know instead that I greatly enjoyed the time I spent with you, Robin Qiratisa, and, of course, my own sister, and shall look upon it fondly. 

Stay safe. I am sure you shall be facing some challenging times in your future. Please do not hesitate to evacuate should the time come. Listen to your mother. She has an extremely good head upon her shoulders. 

Aspen Dawn

* * *

Dear Robin Qiratisa, 

I’ve much less to say to you than I do Selena, due to our shorter acquaintanceship. You seem like a kind young man, though, so I shall leave you with a simple warning, instead.

You seem to be interested in combat. Police, perhaps, or military. With that in mind, I highly suggest you avoid anything that would bring you in combat with your...friends on the Southern Border. There are much better uses for your life, and I’m afraid if you were to meet me there, we would not be allies. 

Do not make Leona sad by dying a stupid, pointless death. 

Aspen Dawn

* * *

Dear Cynthia Kemikeru, 

Kindly destroy this letter upon reading it. 

With that taken care of, I strongly suggest relocating. You may have noticed the loss of much of the Southern Section of the Great Wall. I will not apologize for that. I will, however, apologize for any inconvenience it may cause you. I wouldn’t forgive me just yet, as I imagine that said inconvenience shall upgrade into an actual ‘problem’ come a few months of the War. 

You don’t strike me as the type to care much about that, though. Instead, I shall instead let you know that Leona is well. And, should I have anything to say about it, she will continue living a long, healthy life, even if it means I shall have to lay down my life for hers. I do not jest when I claim her as a sister, and, having no family of my own, I know full well the value of those bonds. 

You need not worry about her. Worry about yourself, instead. Times will be tough, and I hope for both of our sakes that we never meet on the battlefield. I might suggest that you discourage the students you care about from appearing on that front, as well. 

I suspect that our paths will lead us to cross again, sooner than later. I hope that it is a favorable one. 

Yuki

* * *

Dear Alexandria Dawn,

I do not believe there is much I have left to say to you, as everything I’ve needed to ask, I have. Of course, there are many things I’d wish to ask you, but as they would require answers to be useful, I think I shall pass on that. 

A reassurance, instead, then. I will protect Leona. Blood or not, she is my sister. We share a kinship I hadn’t thought possible without a romantic bond — and I am so, so very grateful for it. She’s changed me, Alexandria, and in a way I can not even protest. 

Thank you, for raising such a wonderful daughter. And thank you, too, for the assistance you have given me in my time here. 

Until such time as she returns under your care, I shall guard her in my stead. You have my word. 

Yuki

  
  



	134. UPDATE

Hi, everyone. I'm abandoning Spellborne.

...

...

...

Well, in a manner of speaking. What I'm actually doing is _migrating_ the story. I've been editing Spellborne for the last month or so — hence the lack of updates — and the scope of the edits is such that I would not be able to post any edit until I finished editing the entirety of Spellborne. 

I'm not joking about scope, either -- of Act 1, I've essentially rewritten from scratch three different chapters, dozens of different scenes, and created an entire new arc. 

As you might imagine, that would be a long time for now. For a while, I've been trying to write further in the story as I've edited, to...eh. It's been okay, I guess. I've just finished Act 1's edit. After a lot of consideration I've realized that writing on two fronts is extremely stupid when a single Act has already shifted the course of this story so much, and Act 1 isn't even where a lot of the foundation of the future plot is placed! And I've already decided on major, fundamental changes to the story! In fact, I've already planned on moving half of a scene in 2.2 to 3.9, _near the end of the Act!_

Spellborne has changed so much. So, so much. There's so much about the world that has changed. Even the way I approach characterization has changed! And my writing has only jumped in quality since I've started, with the help of my two poor beta readers. 

I think it's all for the better, and I hope you will stick around with me as I do this. Shortly after this goes live, I'll be updating the new, revised 1.1.1 as a brand new story, and I hope that you will be willing to go through this with me again. Things are going to be different, and they're going to be so amazing. I can only hope that I'll share this experience with all of you. 

As a bit of a tease, here's just **some** of the many, many changes that have been made. 

\- Yuki is more consistent  
\- Setsuna has a stronger, more defined personality  
\- Sayaka is, strangely, a tad nicer  
\- Hikaru has lost a little of her onee-chan  
\- Kaede is a real character  
\- The world is much darker  
\- The fights are better  
\- The amount of anime has decreased 50%  
\- More things make more sense  
\- There is now Act 1.3  
\- Closing Chapters no longer exist (Unless?)  
\- Yuki has received a visual update  
\- Narrative Structure is a real thing now  
\- Things are shifted to their proper places  
\- Fixed a bug that caused some things to make no sense  
\- Removed Herobrine

I will never abandon Spellborne, everyone. But I want to make it the best it can be (within reasonable constraints), and this is the path that is best for the story. 


	135. UPDATE 2

Just to let all my readers know that the new Spellborne is currently active as the first story in the series again, accessible via my profile or the series link. 

See you on the other side! Please let me know how you feel about the new chapter :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Spellborne](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26611312) by [The Firelight Magus (Crystalliced)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalliced/pseuds/The%20Firelight%20Magus)




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